


Where Stars Come to Die

by Aini_NuFire



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: (and whump where I can squeeze it in), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Drug Use, Friendship, Gen, Happy Beginnings, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Suicide, Pre-Series, possible trigger warnings ch. 11 and on, then things go downhill
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 28,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22924387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aini_NuFire/pseuds/Aini_NuFire
Summary: Top of their classes, on track for distinguished careers in Starfleet.But sometimes the universe takes bright stars and snuffs them out.
Relationships: Raffi Musiker & Cristóbal Rios
Comments: 275
Kudos: 113





	1. "Orbits Crossing"

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm just gonna jump right into this rabbit hole even if the show later provides details that contradict the backstory I'm putting together. Because my muse is not going to let go of some Rios and Raffi friendship prequel fics. Since we know they "go way back," I'm going with the idea that they've known each other since the Academy, that they knew each other at their best, and the fact that they both ended up broken only increased their mutual understanding of that brokenness.
> 
> Disclaimer: I've constructed a timeline based on the information from canon, but let's face it, there's still a lot of gaps and a lot of this is just me making stuff up as I go. Hope it's enjoyable to read anyway! Also, it's been a while since I've seen any of the Trek shows and I haven't seen all of them, so apologies in advance if I get anything wrong.

"Orbits Crossing"

_2370_

Raffi walked at a harried pace down the sidewalk, shoes clacking crisply on the pavement. She was going to be so late for class. It wasn't even that she'd been goofing off and lost track of time; she'd been working on a project and had gotten absorbed chasing down all these tiny details that wove an intricate pattern in her head. She became oblivious to everything else around her when that happened.

But she could just imagine the looks and heckling she would get if she used that as her excuse. Yeah, she was late to class because she'd gotten caught up in an assignment. That was either incredibly lame or incredibly nerdy.

She looked down at her PADD and swiped through the information she'd been sifting through earlier. She hadn't finished, and the data was still swirling around in her head in a very distracting manner. She'd frankly be lucky if she could pay attention once she even got to class.

She wasn't watching where she was going, intent on her PADD. Perhaps some part of her assumed people would just see she was engrossed in something important and get out of her way.

Apparently that didn't apply to soccer balls.

The hit right smack on her head sent Raffi stumbling backward as her vision went white. The back of her heel caught on the edge of the sidewalk and then she was falling, landing on her ass on the lawn with an abrupt thud.

"Shit, I'm sorry," someone exclaimed. "Are you okay?"

Raffi gave herself a small shake to dispel the haze around her head—not wise. Her forehead was stinging sharply and she reached a hand up to touch it. She felt the presence of someone crouching beside her.

" _Mierda_ ," the voice cursed again. "Do I need to call a medic?"

That jolted her back to clarity. "What? No?" She immediately glowered at the young man kneeling beside her as she fumbled to regain her feet. He reached out to help and she shrugged him off. "What the hell are you doing?" she snapped, looking down first at the white and black patched ball and then searching for her data pad.

"Just having a game of soccer," he said contritely. "The shot went wide. I'm really sorry."

Raffi bent down and snatched up her PADD, looking it over critically for cracks. It looked intact. Lucky for this asshole. She glanced back at him and found him grimacing at her face.

"That looks like it hurts. I can walk you to the infirmary."

"It's fine," she said brusquely. "And I'm late."

"Are you sure?" he pressed.

"Yes." She inhaled sharply and tugged her shirt down to straighten out the creases.

He continued to regard her skeptically.

"And watch where you're playing," she added harshly as she turned to stride away.

"I did call out a warning," he replied, some of his earlier remorse sliding away. "Maybe you should watch out for your surroundings."

Raffi shot him a glower over her shoulder before marching away. Her concentration was completely addled now and she didn't even try looking at her work as she hurried to the lecture hall. She did, however, catch a glimpse of her reflection in the glass siding of the building, and there was a nice bright welt on her forehead.

The door made a very loud, very resounding noise when she pulled it open, ruining any chance at slipping in unobtrusively.

The professor glanced up, skewering her with an austere mien. "Cadet Musiker, how nice of you to join us," he intoned.

Raffi winced and quickly made her way down the hall steps to take a seat.

"I suppose you had something better to do than attend my lecture?" he went on.

"I, uh…got beaned in the head with a soccer ball," she said lamely.

There were a few snickers and an arched brow from the instructor, so she pointed to the obvious red mark on her head.

Any embarrassment she felt was overshadowed by the professor's subsequent loss for words.


	2. Overtures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was wrong, yesterday's episode totally made the possibility of Rios and Raffi knowing each other at the Academy AU, but whatev I'm gonna keep going with it anyway because I just want me some more content with these two.

"Overtures"

_2370_

With how intense Starfleet course work was, it was little wonder cadets often blew off steam at clubs and bars on the weekends. Rios knocked back a healthy swig of his ale and laughed at something one of his friends said. The bar held a boisterous crowd tonight, but it was a good group of cadets, no habitual brawlers among them.

Rios spotted a head of very distinct curls pass by on his left, and he turned to track the figure's movements as she headed for the counter. He watched for a few moments and, seeing she didn't seem to have any company, slipped away from his group and made his way toward her.

"Saurian brandy," she was telling the bartender as Rios inserted himself into the space at the bar on her right.

"Hey," he greeted.

She immediately narrowed her eyes at him. So she probably remembered who he was.

"I wanted to apologize again for hitting you in the head with the soccer ball," he said, flicking a quick glance at her forehead, which no longer displayed the evidence of that encounter a few days ago.

She didn't respond, just continued to glare at him almost grumpily. He wasn't daunted.

"I'm Rios," he went on. "Cristóbal Rios."

"Raffi Musiker," she replied grudgingly. "And I suppose I could have done a better job of watching my surroundings," she conceded.

"Well," Rios shrugged. "Not that you could have done much in that moment."

"I could have sent the ball right back at your head," she said, lifting her chin with a hint of challenge. It only made him grin.

"Touché." He raised his almost empty glass as her drink was set in front of her.

She picked it up and cocked her head in a return gesture, then took a hearty drag of her brandy. Her face immediately scrunched up and she sucked air through her clenched teeth before letting it back out in a low whistle of appreciation.

"I just get caught up in things," she said, continuing a previous thread of the conversation. "It's why I was running late in the first place."

"What kinds of things?"

"Analysis of sensor readings. You see, each class of starship gives off very specific frequencies across the spectrum that can identify its make without visual confirmation…"

Rios tried to follow along as she became more fervent and animated in her explanation, but he didn't remember going this in-depth in any of his classes thus far at the Academy.

Raffi cut herself off abruptly and leaned back against the counter. "You're not interested in this," she said.

He raised the hand holding his empty glass and pointed one finger at her. "I don't understand it all; that's not the same thing."

She eyed him skeptically, then shook her head and picked up her drink. "This is too much alcohol to be having this discussion anyway."

Rios waved the bartender down to pour him another glass. "So you're operations track," he surmised. "I'm command."

"Big aspirations."

"I won't deny I want to have my own ship one day," he said with a small smile. "With skilled men and women to run it."

"We do all the work; you get all the glory," Raffi said sardonically.

"A captain is only as good as his crew," Rios rejoined, but with full sincerity.

Raffi considered him for a moment, and then raised her glass. "To captains and crews."

He lifted his refill. "And to chasing stars."


	3. A Pair of Nerds

"A Pair of Nerds"

_2370_

Raffi made her way across the outdoor picnic area toward where Cris was sitting under the shade of a tree, one knee drawn up to brace the book he was reading. He didn't look up at her approach, and with a smirk, she took the rubber squeeze ball she'd taken to carrying out of her pocket and bounced it off his head.

"Ow," he said, still without looking up.

"You should pay attention to your surroundings," Raffi said glibly as she plopped down beside him.

"I saw you coming."

"So you were ignoring me."

"I didn't expect you to throw something at me."

Raffi grinned. "Neither did I the first time."

Rios's mouth finally quirked and he shook his head in amusement.

Raffi peered over his shoulder at the book. "What are you reading?"

He angled the cover toward her. _The Picard Maneuver_.

"Why don't you just download it onto your PADD?"

"I like the feel of paper."

She rolled her eyes. "You're a nerd."

"Did you want something, _chica_?" he asked with put-upon impatience, placing a bookmark between the pages and setting the volume down.

"Yes," she said primly. "I came to tell you I got my scores. And I was _this_ close to beating yours," she added, holding up her thumb and forefinger a breadth's apart.

He bit back a smile. "Are you going to make it your mission to beat every single one of my marks?"

"You hold the record in most categories for the current enrollment population," she rejoined. "Someone needs to make sure you don't get an ego."

"Remind me who's gotten the highest marks in the operations classes…"

Raffi spread her arms invitingly. "Hey, you're welcome to try to beat them."

Rios shook his head and picked up his book again, the two them falling into a companionable silence. Raffi snatched up her rubber ball from the ground and settled into a rhythmic workout of squeezing and flexing her hand muscles. It was good stress relief but also good for tendonitis.

"So here's the thing," she said.

"Yes?" Rios responded, once again not glancing up from his book.

"I'm out of credits."

He cast her a sidelong look. "Replicate too many pints of ice cream?"

"Coffee," she said indignantly. And okay, yeah, there was ice cream.

Rios smirked. "Want me to cook you dinner tonight?"

She hid a smile and shrugged nonchalantly. That had been what she'd been angling for. She'd been dubious at first when she first learned Rios sometimes cooked food instead of always ordering from the replicator. Truth be told, she didn't find the meals tasted any different; she did, however, enjoy a quiet evening in the kitchen studying to the backdrop of Latin music, the smell of sizzling spices, and the staccato rhythm of Rios dicing vegetables at the counter.

"If you're not busy," she said casually.

Rios just grinned and went back to reading his book.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I threw in the Rios cooks bit for Be_Right_Back. ;)


	4. Through Stormy Weather

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a nice long chapter of whump and h/c for you all. Thanks to 29Pieces for beta reading this one even though she hasn't even seen the show yet, and to tessseagull for helping me with the Spanish in all my fics. ^_^

"Through Stormy Weather"

_2371_

Raffi had heard of Commander Helenski's unique brand of "testing" his students in his Survival Strategies course. She'd thought maybe it was exaggerated. And if not, surely she could handle whatever he thought to throw at her.

She'd anticipated it coming nearer the end of the semester, a final exam so to speak. So she had been completely caught off guard mid-Spring when he'd taken a portion of his class up in a shuttle, after having instructed them to deposit everything on their persons in a bucket back at the shuttle bay, and proceeded to beam them out one by one and drop them in the middle of the wilderness to fend for themselves for the next twenty-four hours.

Needless to say, Raffi was not happy. Sure, she understood the idea in principle, but in application? The sun was beating down on her head, her black uniform pants were soaking in the heat like a radiator, and there were insects buzzing around her face and curls. All in all, this _sucked_.

But standing around grousing wasn't going to improve things. She needed to start with the basics: shelter and water. She picked a direction and began walking.

It wasn't long before she was sweating all the way through her uniform and the humidity was plastering pieces of hair to her forehead while other parts frizzed out. She didn't even want to think about how she'd look—and smell—when she was finally picked up. Her only consolation was there was a group of them out here all being subjected to this humiliation.

Her mouth quirked as she wondered how Rios was making do. She'd love to get higher marks than him on this assessment.

Filled with a new determination, Raffi pressed on, eventually finding a stream several minutes later. She practically flung herself to the ground at the water's edge and splashed the cool refreshing liquid over her face and neck. Thirst hit her like a sledgehammer but she had to catch herself before taking a drink. All the microbes in there would wreak havoc on the human intestinal biome.

She rocked back on her haunches, debating how to approach this. She'd have to boil the water before drinking, which meant she'd need a fire. Phasers could be used to heat rocks to the point where they generated heat, but Commander Helenski was too much of a hard-ass to allow them even that one piece of gear. She'd have to use the archaic—and ridiculous—method of rubbing two sticks together.

Raffi gathered up some dry brush and twigs, then found two larger sticks to rub against each other in order to create enough friction to start a fire.

However, it wasn't working quite like it was theoretically supposed to. She kept at it determinedly, rubbing harder and harder until her arms ached and sweat was beading across her brow again. A brisk breeze cooled her face, offering some relief. Raffi tossed the sticks down with a grunt and plopped back on her ass. Yeah, this was going well so far.

The wind picked up with a forceful gust, and all of a sudden it seemed the sky turned darker. Raffi glanced up to find heavy, ominous clouds had obscured the sun. The sweat that had been sweltering moments before now felt icy as chilled air brushed across her skin. Thunder rumbled faintly in the distance.

Raffi waited, trepidation setting her on edge. It wasn't long before the heavens opened up and unleashed a torrential downpour.

She surged to her feet. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me!"

Lightning forked across the sky, followed by a loud snap of thunder. Raffi scrambled across the ground in search of shelter, boots slipping in the sediment that quickly turned to slick sludge. Her comm badge crackled with a distorted voice.

She slapped the device pinned to her shirt. "Here! Do you copy? Hello!"

Several successive flashes lit up the sky, some branching down to the ground. The interference was probably messing with the comms, and the transporters. Even if Starfleet had wanted to call off this training exercise and retrieve the cadets, they wouldn't be able to. Which meant this taste of practical experience was now a _real_ matter of survival.

A massive boom above her head rattled Raffi's rib cage and sent her heart lurching. She needed to get out of this. But everywhere she turned was a gray haze under the unrelenting deluge.

"Raffi!"

She pulled up short, unsure if she'd heard right over the din. Movement up a ways caught her eye.

"Over here!" It was Rios, standing just underneath a small escarpment and waving to get her attention.

She adjusted course and sprinted toward the partial shelter under a cleft of rock, throwing herself against the back wall and breathing heavily. Water streamed down her face from her waterlogged curls.

"Are you all right?" Rios asked. He was just as soaked through as she was.

"Oh yeah, peachy."

He looked back out at the weather. "Pretty sure this wasn't on the commander's agenda."

Raffi snorted. "If there weren't issues of liability involved, he'd probably wait for a day like this to throw us out here."

Rios canted his head in concession of that. "How long do you think it'll take them to get us out of here?"

"I don't know." Raffi straightened, mouth pressed into a grim line. "This lightning is gonna screw with all the instruments. We could be stuck until it's over."

He ran a hand through his hair, flinging droplets everywhere. Raffi was abruptly reminded of her thirst, and she turned her gaze out at the rain. Part of her wanted to just stick her head out and tip it back to let the water pour into her mouth, but it was coming down _really_ hard, drumming thunderously on the ground.

Rios bent down and sifted through the rock and dirt before picking up a piece of bark with a small dip in the middle. Straightening, he held it out to collect some of the rain.

Raffi crossed her arms. "I bet you made fire rubbing two sticks together," she muttered.

He smirked. "I hadn't even thought to try that. I was still looking for a water source when the storm hit."

"We have water now."

"That we do." When the bark was half full, he brought it back in and took a long drag, then passed it over.

Raffi tried to tip the water into her mouth without having to touch her lips to the rough bark. The cold liquid slaked her thirst but sent a shudder down her spine as a chill wormed its way down to her marrow.

"Are we having fun yet?" Rios said rhetorically.

Raffi wrapped her arms around her middle as the shivering started in earnest. "Damn weather forecast didn't see this coming?" she groused.

"Those forecasts are notoriously unreliable," Rios replied, grimacing as a gust of wind whipped down under the scarp.

Raffi snorted. "By five degrees or so. Not the difference between sunny skies and a monsoon!"

They fell silent, huddling in misery as the storm continued to rage. The wind was gusting so fiercely that the rain was slanting horizontally and bombarding them under their inadequate shelter.

"Want to try looking for some place better?" Rios asked.

Raffi bit her lip as she thought about it. They weren't exactly protected here, and it was frickin' cold. "Yeah," she said. "Staying here isn't doing us any favors."

With grim looks, they ventured from the cleft and out into the full brunt of the storm. Some rocky hills weren't far, and they would hopefully find a cave where they could fully shelter in. Raffi's soaked clothing clung to her frame and added an extra few pounds that seemed heavier than it should have as she slogged her way up an incline. The wind howled.

Lightning suddenly forked down in a multi-pronged branch, striking a large oak tree mere feet in front of them. The trunk split right down the middle with a resounding crack that was almost immediately drowned out by a bone-rattling boom that encompassed _everything_.

Raffi felt arms throw themselves around her and then she was being flung away from the tree just as it snapped in half and began to fall. She pitched sideways and hit the ground, Rios's arms firmly wrapped around her. They tumbled together, back down the slope for several yards until finally coming to a jarring stop at the bottom in shallow standing water.

Raffi groaned and rolled onto her side, several different places twinging with new bruises. She twisted around, ready to curse Rios out for that brilliant move, but froze when she saw him lying sprawled on the ground, eyes closed and blood streaming from a gash on the side of his head.

"Shit." She scrambled over, grabbing his shoulders and digging her fingernails into them. "Rios. No, no, no. Cris!" She reached under his jaw line to feel for a pulse and found one. She tapped his cheek insistently. "Come on, Rios, don't you do this to me."

He didn't stir. The deluge was still coming down and the ravine they were in was filling with water. Raffi rocked back and forth, trying to focus on taking several deep breaths. She needed to stay calm, needed to keep a clear head. And they needed to get out of here.

Steeling her jaw, she grabbed Rios's arm and hauled him up over her shoulder in a fireman's carry, staggering under his weight. Her legs quavered, but she forced one foot in front of the other, taking slow, strenuous steps as she searched for an easy way out of the ravine.

The slopes gradually leveled out, and Raffi managed to get them both clear before a flash flood happened to strike. Because that would have just been their luck.

A stretch of rocky hills loomed before her, and she scanned their base for signs of a cave.

"Thank god," she breathed, spotting a dark recess in the granite.

Muscles quivering, Raffi pushed on, body bent almost double, eyes on her goal, and Rios's heavy weight across her back. It seemed to take forever but at last she stumbled into the cave, mustering the strength to make it just a few more feet, and then she collapsed, bringing them both down with a heavy thud.

Raffi folded over herself, chest heaving from exertion. She wanted nothing more than to just lay there and not move but knew she couldn't. She took the time to catch her breath, then focused on heaving herself up again and crawling over to Rios. He was still unconscious. Most of the blood had washed away into pinkish trails down his neck and collar, but more was oozing out from the gash.

Raffi straightened and wrestled her jacket off, then peeled her sodden gray shirt up over her head. A fierce shiver shook her entire body as gooseflesh rippled up her now bare arms. Her tank top was also wet but she opted to leave it on.

She bunched up her damp shirt and pressed it to Rios's temple. Head wounds could bleed a lot, she mentally reminded herself. It didn't have to mean he was dying.

"You'd better not die on me," she muttered out loud.

She checked after a few minutes and found the bleeding had slowed. That was one potentially life-threatening thing temporarily taken care of. There was still hypothermia to worry about.

Raffi set about wresting Rios out of his clothes, leaving him in just his undershirt and boxers. She stripped off her clingy pants next. She knew it was important to get out of wet clothing but she was shivering even _more_ now. Rios was icy pale where he lay.

Raffi roved her gaze around the cave, taking stock of it. She belatedly wondered whether there was something already living inside, but there was little to do now if there was.

There was some dried brush scattered about, enough to clump together for kindling. She picked up some stones and turned them over in her palms ruminatively. Rubbing two sticks together had been an utter failure, but she could try striking two stones against each other.

Taking a breath, she knelt in front of the dried brush and scraped one stone across the other in a quick, sharp movement. Nothing happened. She tried again, and again, fighting the urge to cry when it still didn't work.

Then, just as she was about to scream in helpless frustration, a spark ignited, flitting down to land in the dry grass. Raffi held her breath as she watched it catch and slowly simmer. She bent down, heart jackhammering, and gently blew on the embers, hoping to fuel them. The dried pieces crackled as the flames took hold, spreading out into a small fire.

Raffi rocked back and let out a delirious, choked laugh, then thrust her hands over the flames, shuddering at the warmth kissing her frozen flesh. Twisting around, she grabbed Rios under the arms and scooted him closer, settling his head in her lap as she curled around his upper body to share body heat. It didn't feel like it was working, and Raffi's throat constricted under suffocating despair.

But eventually her shivers eased as her skin dried. Her underclothes were still damp and uncomfortable but bearable. The insulated cave began to keep the scant heat the fire generated inside its confines.

Rios let out a low moan.

Raffi jerked upright and leaned over him, brushing lank hair back from his brow. "Cris? Can you hear me?"

His face puckered slightly and he turned toward her voice.

"Rios," Raffi said more loudly. "Come on, open your eyes, dammit."

Slowly, very slowly, his eyelids cracked open. "Raffi?" he murmured.

She let out a shaky smile. "Yeah."

"What…happened?" He squinted at her as though in pain.

"Lightning hit a tree and we fell," she explained. "I found this cave though. So we can just sit here, dry and warm, until the storm's over."

"Mm." His eyes closed, then slowly peeled open again and he lolled them to the side. "You made fire," he whispered, sounding impressed.

"Yeah. I should get an A after this."

Rios hummed in what sounded like agreement as his eyes slipped closed again.

"Hey." She tapped his cheek. "You have a head injury. You need to stay awake."

He jolted them open again, obviously trying to do as told, but they kept dropping to half-mast.

"Teach me some Spanish," Raffi said.

Rios forced his eyes open yet again. "Now?"

"Yes."

He let out a pained groan that might have been protest, but after a moment said, " _Fuego_."

"Did you just cuss at me?"

The corner of his mouth ticked up before quickly morphing into a grimace. "It means 'fire.'"

" _Fuego_ ," she repeated.

"Mm. _Tormenta_."

"Torment? Are you in pain?" she asked worriedly.

Again, he smiled faintly. "I am, but that means 'storm.'"

"I see we're going with a theme. Alright, what's the word for 'rain'?"

" _Lluvia_." His breath hitched and he muttered, " _A la mierda con esto_."

"And what's that mean?"

"That I'm so over this survival training," he said tiredly, voice fading.

Raffi swallowed hard as Rios obviously lost the battle to stay awake. She folded her arms around him and rested her chin on the top of his head, huddling together in silence for warmth and listening to the storm. At some point, the lightning and thunder stopped, and about an hour after that, Raffi saw the bright swirls of transporter lights appear outside the cave.

"Hello!" someone shouted.

"In here!"

A rescue team, along with Commander Helenski, jogged in. Two medics immediately crouched down beside Raffi and Rios and began running medical tricorders over them both.

"He hit his head," she said. "I tried to keep him awake."

"You did well," one of the medics assured her as the other brought out a triage blanket to drape over Rios. She tapped her comm badge. "Get ready to transport."

Raffi looked up at the Commander and felt her cheeks flush hotly as she abruptly remembered she and Rios were in their underwear. "We weren't- our clothes were soaked," she rushed to explain. "I was worried about hypothermia—"

Helenski held up a hand. "You did well, Cadet."

Raffi looked back down at Rios as he was carefully lifted off her lap. Before she could ask if he'd be all right, the medic signaled for them to be beamed out. Lights swirled, and the cave was momentarily replaced with sparks before Raffi blinked and found herself in a sickbay. Rios was whisked away to a bio bed and surrounded by medical personnel.

Raffi was guided to her own bed and checked over. Her abrasions and contusions were tended to, and someone brought her a set of dry clothes fresh from the replicator. The doctor then released her to go home and curl up in bed with a hot drink, but she insisted on staying with Cris until he woke up. He'd had a pretty bad concussion but was being treated.

After changing into the dry clothes, she dragged a stool over to his bedside and settled in to wait. He was still slightly pale and a warming blanket had been pulled up to his shoulders, but a dermal regenerator had erased all evidence of the garish wound from before.

He stirred at some point, eyes sluggishly opening, but instead of confusion when his gaze found Raffi, he smiled.

" _Mi heroína,_ " he breathed.

Raffi leaned forward, arms on her thighs. "And what's that one mean?"

Rios closed his eyes and said sleepily, "My hero."

She smiled back and patted his arm. "Yeah, well, you saved me first."


	5. Rising Stars

"Rising Stars"

_2371_

A round of drinks was raised in the air, followed by a chorus of congratulations and cheers. Rios knocked back a swig of brandy, but no amount of alcohol was going to compete with the buzz he had from being accepted to Nova Squadron, the elite flight team at the Academy.

Raffi ordered another round for everyone, spearheading this little celebratory gathering. The friendly competition between her and Rios had petered out some now that they'd both started to make a name for themselves in their own respective career tracks.

"Now you gotta win the Rigel Cup," she said with the same enthusiasm as if she were the one who'd joined the squad.

Rios scoffed. Of course that was every pilot's lofty dream, but he couldn't let himself jump that far ahead, not yet. There would be months of training and maneuvers, and performing at commencement ceremonies. And then if they happened to shine bright enough to earn that esteemed recognition, well, that would be one hell of a high too.

Raffi broke into a grin and twirled a finger at him. "Uh-huh, there it is. You know you want it."

Rios realized he'd been smiling to himself at the idea, and he quickly shook his head to snap himself out of it. "Let me have tonight first."

She continued to grin uncontrollably as she took another swig of her drink.

"Hey, Rios," someone snapped.

Everyone paused in their merry making in response to the harsh intrusion. Rios turned around but otherwise didn't respond to the fellow cadet standing in the middle of the bar staring him down.

"Yeah, you think you're a big shot," Wade spat. "Part of Nova Squadron. That was supposed to be _my_ spot."

Rios still didn't say anything. Wade was a self-entitled ass who thought Starfleet was his stepping stone to greatness and glory. He completely missed the spirit of what Starfleet was, that service was at the heart of it, not exaltation. Rios imagined the higher-ups could see that in Wade too, which was why he hadn't been accepted to the squadron.

Raffi snorted loudly. "Piss off."

"What, you got nothin' to say?" Wade pressed. "Gonna let a woman speak for you?"

Rios arched a brow as Raffi's expression went icy smooth and she slowly turned back toward Wade.

"You got a problem with women?" she asked in a deceptively calm tone.

"I got a problem with people butting in where they don't belong," Wade sneered. He shot a scathing glower over her shoulder at Rios. "This is the star pupil Rios, needing someone else to defend him?"

Rios held up his palms. "I'm not the one in need of defending at the moment." He leaned back against the edge of the high table behind him, content to stay out of the way. He knew Wade was getting too close to fire.

"Butting in?" Raffi repeated. "You're the one who walked into the middle of a celebration without being invited. That's very rude. Why don't you run along before you embarrass yourself further."

"Why don't you shut that mouth of yours—" Wade attempted to grab Raffi's arm and shove her out of the way, but she spun out of his grasp, captured his wrist instead, and torqued his arm behind his back while spinning him around to slam face first across a table.

"Touch me again and I'll break your fingers."

Wade sputtered and writhed but couldn't get enough leverage to throw her off. After letting him squirm for another moment, Raffi finally pushed away from him. He scrambled to his feet, cheeks flaring puce and fists clenching. Rios straightened in anticipation of him actually attacking Raffi in retaliation.

But then a commanding voice sounded over the hushed whispers of the crowd, silencing them all.

"Is there a problem here?"

Every cadet in the bar snapped to attention at the Lieutenant Commander's arrival. No one moved or spoke.

"Well?"

"No problem, sir," Raffi answered.

The Commander looked to Wade, who was visibly seething where he stood. "Cadet?"

"No problem, sir," Wade ground out.

"Good. You look a little piqued, son. Maybe you should get some fresh air."

Wade's cheeks flushed again and, casting a look around at everyone staring at him, beat a hasty retreat out of the bar. Everyone returned to their business then, though subdued with the Lieutenant Commander still lingering about.

"What an ass," Raffi muttered as she rejoined Rios.

"As much as Wade deserves an ass-kicking, it wouldn't be worth you ending up on disciplinary action," Rios pointed out.

Raffi took a sip of her drink. "I don't know, it might be."

He smirked.

They both stiffened as the Lieutenant Commander came to stand at their table.

"Congratulations, Cadet," he said with a knowing gleam in his eye. "You'll do us proud."

"Thank you, sir," Rios fumbled to answer, suddenly feeling self-conscious. It was a huge honor, and he was both proud and humbled by it.

And inside he hoped he was worthy of the faith placed in him.


	6. Seasons Changing

"Seasons Changing"

_2372_

The Nova Squadron didn't win the Rigel Cup while Rios was on the team, but that was okay. His piloting skills, which were pretty damn good already, became exceptional from his experience with them. But it had come time to move on. He'd completed his standard courses at Starfleet Academy and was going to continue with the Advance Training track, which would consume all of his time for the next three years.

Raffi plopped down on the couch next to him, two glasses of champagne in her hands. "I got my posting," she said, passing him one of the flutes. There was a lot of celebrating going on among the graduating class.

"Yeah?"

"Mars. Starfleet Intelligence."

He clinked his glass against hers. "Congratulations."

She beamed. Her final year at the Academy she'd proven she had a sharp analytical mind and had started hoping for a job in the Intelligence division. Rios was glad she'd gotten one.

Raffi sighed with a touch of moroseness. "This is the last time we're going to do this."

He paused mid-sip. "When do you leave?"

"Tomorrow. I have to pack tonight."

He nodded. They'd both known their paths would diverge after graduation. It was a bittersweet milestone.

"Maybe now I'll finally be able to get my work done without you constantly interrupting," he remarked.

She shoved her shoulder against his, almost making him spill his drink. "And I can stop having to deal with chicks pestering me about whether you're available and if I could set them up with you."

Rios straightened. "Hang on, I had a personal dating service at my fingertips and you never told me?"

Raffi snorted. "Like you needed me to pick up girls."

They fell into a comfortable silence, sipping their champagne.

"I am going to miss having my own personal chef," Raffi lamented after a moment.

"Get a hologram."

She smirked. "Not the same."

"No," he agreed.

They sat for a few more moments before Raffi let out another sigh and set her glass down. "I should go pack."

"Keep in touch," Rios called after her.

She grinned and saluted him on her way out. He stayed on the couch nursing his champagne. Times were changing.

It was the nature of things.


	7. Long Time No See

"Long Time No See"

_2375_

Raffi sat on the floor with her one-year-old son, taking a break from her work and dancing a plush teddy bear on her knee. She grinned as Gabriel laughed. He rolled toward her, but instead of reaching for the teddy, he stretched grabby fingers for one of her PADDs.

"No, no, that's Mommy's," she said, snatching it out of his reach and setting it on her left. She didn't need to bring her work home with her, but she had a hard time _not_. Researching was her thing, and nothing else gave her a sense of flow like it did.

Though that flow was more often interrupted when she did bring her work home.

Gabriel, deprived of the PADD, turned his attention back to the teddy bear. Raffi hopped it across the floor to bop him on the nose. He let out a squeal.

The door beeped with a visitor, interrupting their play. Raffi handed over the teddy and got up to go answer it. She swiped the console to open the door and lit up at the sight of the figure standing on her doorstep.

"Rios?"

He greeted her with a wide grin. "Hey, Raf."

"Oh my god, what are you doing here?" she asked with a delighted laugh, reaching out to pull him into a hug.

"I've been assigned to a ship, but it's still under final construction at the Fleet Yards, so I'll be hanging around Mars for a bit."

Raffi shook her head in disbelief. "Well, come in." She stepped back and gestured him inside. "Do you have somewhere to stay?"

"The _ibn Majid_ ," he replied, setting his duffel bag on the floor. "The living quarters are all functional; it's just some of the other ship systems still getting fine tuned. But I thought I'd drop in and say hi."

"Momma!"

Rios looked toward Gabriel and then arched his brow at Raffi. "And who is this?"

Raffi gave him a playful swat on the arm. "You know who it is. I sent you the baby announcement." She went over to sit down by her son, jerking her head back when he shoved the teddy bear into her face.

Rios gingerly picked his way over the PADDs laid out on the floor to find a spot to sit as well. "I got a picture of a tiny, wrinkled sausage roll."

Raffi sputtered indignantly, to which Rios just grinned unabashedly.

"I see he's inherited your hair," he went on.

Raffi ran a hand through her boy's frizzy curls. "Baby, this is Uncle Rios."

Gabriel was too young to understand anything more than that he had a potential new playmate, and he flung a stuffed Flotter at Rios, who picked it up and bounced it on the rug between them.

"So things are good?" he asked.

Raffi nodded. "They're great. I just made lieutenant junior grade and my supervisor thinks I'll make lieutenant within the year. I love my work. I have Jae and Gabriel to come home to. Everything's perfect. You?"

His lips twitched and he tried to deflect his gaze toward Gabriel. "I graduated my advance training courses with the rank of lieutenant."

Raffi's expression went slack for a moment before she let out an exaggerated groan. "Son-of-a—"

" _Hey_ ," Rios cut her off, flicking a pointed glance at the kid.

She covered Gabriel's ears and leaned forward. "You're a damn teacher's pet, you know that?"

He arched a dubious brow at her. "Pot calling the kettle black there."

Raffi huffed and released Gabriel as he started to squirm. "Can you stay for dinner? Meet Jae?"

"Sure."

Raffi canted her head. "I don't suppose you'd want to do the cooking?"

"I just got off the shuttle, you want me to slave away in your kitchen?"

"You used to enjoy cooking."

"Typically the guest is the one the _host_ cooks for," he rejoined.

Raffi rolled her eyes. "I've missed your cooking, alright? But if you'd rather have something from the replicator…" She trailed off and shrugged.

His mouth quirked, and then he shook his head with put-upon exasperation. "Why do I do these things for you?"

Raffi bit back a grin—unsuccessfully. "Because I'm just that persuasive."

"Uh-huh."

But Rios was smiling too as he went back to playing with Gabriel.


	8. Bedside Manner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A fluffy sick!fic because I could.

"Bedside Manner"

_2375_

Rios shifted in bed, trying to find a comfortable position. But everywhere he turned, the aches were still there, as was the raw throat and the cough and stuffiness that wasn't letting him get any rest.

The door in the outer room chirped, but he ignored it. There wasn't possibly anything anyone needed from him right now when the _ibn Majid_ was still docked in the Fleet Yards getting some last-minute kinks worked out before it was approved for launch.

The door chimed again and he threw his blanket over his head, willing them to go away.

It didn't work. The beeps sounded again and more insistently, as though whoever it was were jabbing the console repeatedly now. Rios dragged himself from bed and shuffled out of his sleeping quarters.

"Who is it?" he barked hoarsely.

There was no response. Right, the computer was currently acting up. With a groan, he slogged over to the door and slapped a hand on the side console to open it. He blinked in surprise at who was standing outside—Raffi, carrying a tote bag and what looked like an old crock pot.

"What are you doing here?" he blurted.

"You said you were sick. I thought I'd bring you some chicken soup." She lifted the pot as evidence.

"Chicken soup," he repeated dubiously.

"Always good for the flu." Raffi nudged past him to come inside.

Rios sighed in resignation and closed the door. "I could have just replicated that here."

Except, those were on the fritz lately too and it would be a gamble for what exactly came out in those ingredients.

Raffi set the pot down on the coffee table and turned back to him, crossing her arms with a huff. "There's gratitude for you."

Rios scrubbed a hand down his face. "I'm sorry, I'm just…" He broke off to cough into his elbow.

"You look awful," Raffi stated. "Haven't you been to sickbay?"

"Yes. I got the trypto-whatever." He waved his hand vaguely. "It's not helping."

Her expression turned sympathetic. "Come on then." She took his arm and started steering him back to bed.

"You shouldn't stay," he protested. "You could catch it and pass it on to Gabriel."

"I'm not worried. I have an iron immune system." She stopped at the bed to straighten out the blankets, then held them up as Rios climbed back under them.

He laid his head back against the pillow and tried not to groan. He ached all over, and while his fever was mildly low-grade, he felt like shit. He just wanted to sleep for the next two days, if this damned flu would let him.

Something cold was pressed against his neck and before he could react, there was the hiss of a hypospray and slight sting. He jolted upright. "What the hell was that?" he exclaimed.

Raffi tucked the hypospray back into her tote bag. "My own homemade cocktail for treating the flu," she replied. "Works every time."

Rios sputtered. "Your- Raffi!"

"Don't be a baby."

"I see motherhood hasn't softened you up any," he glowered.

She slapped the back of his head.

" _Ow_."

"Get some rest."

"That's what I was doing until some rampaging mother hen came buzzing at my door."

She ignored him and started clearing off his sofa chair of his discarded uniform from the day before, dropping it on the floor instead and taking a seat.

Rios thunked his head back down and moaned. "Don't you have a job or kid or something to get back to?"

"No-pe," she replied with a pop. She bent over and reached into her tote bag, pulling out a paperback book. "Want me to read to you?"

Rios arched a wry brow at her. "I take it back. Motherhood has made you soft."

"Shut up. Now do you want to listen or not?"

He paused and canted his head to see the cover. "Sure," he said with a small smile.

He settled back and closed his eyes as Raffi's voice filled the room with the rhythmic cadence of a swashbuckling tale by Alexandre Dumas.


	9. To the Stars

"To the Stars"

_2375_

Rios stood in the terminal of the Fleet Yards, his uniform fresh and crisp, gazing out the floor-to-ceiling window panels. The _ibn Majid_ was finally ready for its maiden voyage and the crew had been summoned to assemble for departure.

Rios was ready—he'd been living on the ship for the past several weeks already—and now that it was time to launch into the stars, he was buzzing with excitement.

"Rios!"

He turned and broke into a grin as he spotted Raffi jogging toward him. He'd hoped he wouldn't miss getting to say goodbye to her. It'd been like old times hanging out after their duty shifts, sharing laughs, Rios hijacking her kitchen. He was going to miss it now that they would be parting ways again.

She was huffing by the time she reached him. "I thought I wouldn't make it in time."

"You are cutting it a little close," he warned. She wasn't really, though, as he still had forty minutes before he had to be aboard.

Raffi looked past him to admire the ship. "She's a beauty."

"Yep."

"She does fully work now, right?"

He rolled his eyes. " _Yes_." No more glitches in the system, everything top of the line and pristine.

Raffi smirked. "I got you a bon voyage gift." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a data chip. "Specs for over a hundred printed books so you can have the replicator make you a physical copy instead of being forced to download them onto your PADD."

Rios blinked, genuinely taken aback. "Over a hundred?" he repeated, accepting the chip.

Raffi grinned delightedly. "That's right."

"Raf…you are amazing."

She canted her head to the side. "I know."

He pocketed the chip, then pulled her into a hug.

She squeezed back. "There's a lot of space out there; don't get lost."

He smiled as they pulled apart. "Take care of yourself, _chica_."

With nothing left to say, Rios gave her one last nod and turned to head for the boarding line.

There was a lot of space out there, and he couldn't wait to see it.


	10. Living Legend

"Living Legend"

_2381_

"I'm going to be working with Admiral Jean-Luc Picard. _The_ Jean-Luc Picard!" Raffi pivoted on her heel and paced another track down the length of her quarters. "My god, look at me; I'm like a ridiculous school girl."

"You're excited," Rios replied, his holo image flickering slightly on the communications screen.

"I'm honored," she corrected. That was the mature, adult adjective. She was a lieutenant commander now for crying out loud. "It's an honor to work with him." She spun around and groaned. "What if I make a fool of myself?"

"Raf, you're the top of your field. You wouldn't have been given the assignment otherwise."

She took a deep breath. Yeah, an assignment of such monumental proportions she didn't know if it was even feasible. _900 million_ Romulans to evacuate before their sun went supernova. But it was a worthy cause, one she could get behind one thousand percent.

"He's a legend," she went on, getting worked up again. "What do I say when I meet him?"

"If 'hello' isn't to your taste, you could always try chucking a ball at his head. I've found it breaks the ice and leaves a lasting impression."

Raffi finally paused in her pacing to shoot him a glower. "I'd like to see you chuck a ball at the great Admiral Picard's head and see how that works out for you."

Rios just grinned. "I am a little jealous. The admiral is a legend."

Raffi's nerves tingled again. "Yeah. And this mission…it's kind of daunting."

"That I do not envy you." He paused, expression sobering. "You'll be working closely with the Romulans? Be careful."

She slanted a dry look at him. "I'm an expert in Romulan affairs; I'll be fine."

"It's not just the Romulans you need to watch out for. There's a lot of dissent over this relocation proposal."

Raffi nodded sagely. "Yeah. But Picard believes in this mission, and I'm inclined to believe in him."

Rios quirked a knowing smile. "Heroic captains tend to do that."

Raffi took another deep breath and tugged her uniform jacket down. "I should get going. Wish me luck."

"You don't need it, but good luck," he replied.

She smiled at the vote of confidence and signed off. Time to meet a legend.


	11. Fall From Grace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, we come to it at last. Trigger warnings from here on out for anything the show has already given us, namely alcoholism, drug use, mentions of suicide, etc.

"Fall From Grace"

_2385_

Raffi felt numb as she sat in the Ready Room of the USS _Verity_ with other senior staff, watching the recurring footage of Mars on fire. The Utopia Planitia Ship Yards were decimated, the entire rescue armada that was to save the Romulan population, completely obliterated. Flammable vapors in the stratosphere had been ignited, fulvous explosions that consumed the whole planet in a sea of flame. The death toll was in the tens of thousands, and the planet would likely not be inhabitable again for thousands of years.

It didn't make sense for the synths to suddenly turn rogue and attack Mars. Nothing on this scale had ever happened before. There had been no warning, no indication that there was a flaw in their programming…

The doors to the Ready Room swished open and Admiral Picard strode in. "We need options," he declared in that confident, "of course we're not beaten yet" tone. It had inspired many over the decades, and it inspired Raffi now to sit up straight and focus on the task at hand.

They worked at it all night, proposing ideas, discussing logistics and complications. They finally came up with a plan to replace the armada with mothballed vessels from the Beta Antares Ship Yards and the forty Eridani A Starfleet Construction Yards. It was their Hail Mary, but they could make it work. Raffi spent hours collecting the data, outlining every step of the process for when JL took the proposal to Starfleet.

And then they rejected it and Picard threatened to resign if they didn't change their position. It had been a gamble on his part, throwing such an ultimatum in their faces. It had never even crossed his mind that they would accept.

Raffi felt like the rug had gotten ripped out from under her.

She was summoned immediately afterward and reassigned from the _Verity_ to be transferred back to Starfleet Intelligence stationed on Earth. The Romulans had been utterly abandoned.

…

"Are you okay?"

"Do I look okay?" Raffi snapped. She immediately shook her head at the screen. "Sorry."

"You're not used to defeat," Rios said in understanding.

"It's not even that we failed, it's that Starfleet isn't going to let us try!" She slammed her palms against the edge of her desk, causing the holo image to wobble.

"You saved a lot of lives in the beginning," he offered. "Relocated many Romulans to other worlds."

"A _fraction_ of an entire species. It's not enough."

He sighed. "You can't save everyone, Raf."

"Would you ever accept that?" she retorted.

Rios just gave her a somber look in return. It didn't matter, because there was nothing left to do about it.

* * *

_2386_

Raffi sat at her work station, poring through the hundreds of data streams, trying to find that one piece that connected everything together. She didn't believe the synth attack on Mars was some random flaw in programming. There had been too much dissent over the rescue operation. No, sabotage was more likely.

She paused and captured a piece of data on her holo screen, brows knitting together. She kept coming across pieces that suggested the Romulans were involved, but that didn't make sense either. Why would they want to destroy the armada that was supposed to _save_ their people?

It had to be bigger than that. The Romulans were crafty but there was no way they could execute an operation on this scale within the Federation without inside help. And Starfleet _had_ turned down the backup proposal for evacuation efforts. Who was this Conclave of Eight that kept popping up too?

She downloaded her latest data and stood up from her station. No one looked her way as she strode out of the office.

Her comm beeped and she absentmindedly answered. "Yeah."

"Where are you?"

"At work," she replied irritably.

"You missed dinner." The unspoken _again_ hung in the air judgmentally.

"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry, babe. Listen, I need to go out of town for a day or two. I'll see you guys when I get back."

She disconnected before she had to listen to any arguments. Stopping at the locker room, she grabbed her small go-bag she always had packed and headed out for a visit to Chateau Picard.

…

It was after midnight when Raffi returned home. She threw her bag on the floor and slumped on the sofa, frustration and anger pricking at her eyes. He'd given up, the bastard. The great Admiral Picard. Raffi had thought that of all people he would have listened to her theories about a conspiracy regarding the synths and the ban and the Romulans, that he would have helped her get to the bottom of it.

But he'd turned her away. Said he was retired and wasn't involved anymore. She didn't know when she had felt so shattered.

She pushed herself up and went to the replicator. "Red wine. Actually, no, vodka."

The replicator produced a glass of the requested alcohol. Raffi snatched it up and knocked back a long drag. It burned. She swallowed the rest and thrust the glass back on the platform. "Another."

The replicator whipped up a second. She took it and went back to the sofa to drown her miseries.

"Mom?"

She straightened. "Baby, what are you doing up this late?"

Her son stood in his pajamas, hugging his arms almost defensively. God, he was almost a teenager.

"I heard you come home."

"Well, it's late, you should get back to bed."

Gabriel waited for a moment, looking hesitant. Raffi took another drink of liquor. He finally turned and walked back to his room.

* * *

_2387_

Raffi hated the looks she got at work, the whispers behind her back. She could _feel_ it. She was a pariah among her colleagues where she'd once been an esteemed tactician. Her bosses had told her to stop her seditious talk of conspiracies and Federation involvement in the Mars attack, so she stopped talking about it openly. But she didn't stop her research.

She arrived home late and exhausted as she did every night, only to pull up short at the sight of suitcases on the floor by the door and Jae standing in the living room.

"What's going on?" she asked, confusion morphing into a scowl. "If you're trying to force me into taking a vacation—"

"I'm not," Jae interrupted. "We're leaving."

Raffi faltered. "We…"

"Me and Gabriel. We're done. We can't keep living like this."

"Like what?" she exclaimed.

" _You_." He paused to take a calming breath. "You were always away when you were stationed on the _Verity_ , but now that you're back on Earth we see you even less."

"That is not true. I come home every night!"

"Angry and bitter," he rejoined sharply. He shook his head. "You're not with us even when you're home. You're doing _this_." He turned and gestured to her various PADDs and holo screens mapping her research of the Mars attack and Romulan movements.

"It's my work."

"It's more important to you than your family. It's more important than the respect of your friends and colleagues! And we can't live with it anymore. Gabriel shouldn't have to grow up surrounded by it."

"Why does no one care I'm trying to get to the truth!"

Jae just shook his head and moved past her.

"No, babe, wait, don't go," she pleaded, grabbing his arm.

He gave her a sad look. "I'm sorry. I have to do what's best for Gabriel."

"Jae…" Raffi stood there helplessly. What was she supposed to say to make him stay? That she would abandon this work? She couldn't do that!

And so he pulled away, picked up his suitcases, and walked out.

…

"Raf, it's been two years. When are you going to stop going down this path?"

She shot Rios an incredulous look through the video link. "I'm just supposed to ignore that something corrupt is going on in the Federation?"

His jaw looked tense and he held himself stiffly with one elbow on the desk. "You haven't found any proof of that."

"That's why I'm still looking," she snapped. " _Think_ about it, Cris! The synths attack Mars right when we needed the armada to rescue the Romulans, which a lot of the Federation was against anyway. And then there's a ban on all synth work, which means no one was allowed to investigate whether their programming was truly flawed or tampered with!"

Rios shook his head. "What good does it do now?" he pressed. "The Romulan sun went supernova. It's over."

"They shouldn't be allowed to get away with _murder_." Her expression pinched with anguish. Out of everyone who'd let her down, she'd thought Rios was the one person who would still stand by her.

He ran a hand down his face. "Raf…how are Gabriel and Jae?"

Her throat constricted. "They're fine."

Rios leveled a pointed look at her, and that lump grew spikes.

"They left," she admitted bitterly.

"Raffi, please, I don't want to see this destroy you."

"Screw you!" She slammed the holo screen and hung up on him.

The next day when she walked into work, she was fired.

* * *

_2388_

Raffi sat on the floor of her small, one-bedroom apartment, a bottle of brandy her constant and only company these days. She stared at her walls, superimposed with a holographic projection of images and reports with criss-crossing lines from piece to piece in an intricate web of subterfuge and underlying connections. It was right there, at her fingertips! Yet answers still eluded her after all this time.

She knew what she looked like now—a crazy person. Her family refused to talk to her. No one at Starfleet would take her calls. None of her old friends had bothered to reach out. She and Cris had drifted apart since that fight. He'd tried to contact her a couple of times right afterward but she'd ignored him, and then she'd just…never called him again.

She thought of calling him now. He'd probably forgive her.

But he'd see what her life had become and resume the same old argument every other person in her life had, and that would just lead to another fight. And eventually Raffi ran out of second chances and everyone she ever cared about despised her.

She couldn't stomach that happening with Rios. Maybe it already had anyway and she didn't need the confirmation.

She picked up the bottle and took a long drag. Mars had been destroyed in a day, but hers was a long, slow slide into ruin.


	12. Ruination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I knew from the beginning I'd be going AU with this, but AU in the sense that this backstory takes a completely different path than canon established yet will still end up where the show begins. With the exception of Rios and Raffi going through their shit together in this verse. Hope you enjoy the angst-filled ride to come. ;)

"Ruination"

_2389_

Raffi was dragged from her drugged-out stupor by the incessant beeping of an incoming call. She had half a mind to ignore it. No one friendly contacted her anymore. And no one in her current circle of acquaintances used official channels.

She groaned and heaved herself upright, slapping haphazardly at the console. "What?"

A video link popped up of a woman in a white uniform. "Hello, I'm trying to reach Raffaela Musiker."

"Who's looking?"

The woman hesitated, and Raffi could _feel_ her judgmental waves wafting through the screen. She glanced away at something in her hand. "Raffaela Musiker is listed as the emergency contact for Cristóbal Rios."

"Uh-huh," Raffi muttered absently as she searched for a bottle of something to wash down the bad taste in her mouth.

"Perhaps you know of another family member we could contact instead?" the woman asked tentatively.

Raffi paused, brow furrowing. "Wait, what?" She turned back to the screen. "Who is this?"

The woman pursed her lips. "County General Hospital in San Francisco. I'm trying to reach—"

"What happened to Cris?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss—"

"You called me! I'm his emergency contact. Now what the hell happened?" she demanded, almost sounding like her old self when she'd worn the uniform.

The woman's face pinched in displeasure. "He was found in the bay with an excessive amount of barbiturates in his system. He likely went off the Golden Gate Bridge. It's a miracle a private yacht found him and fished him out. He's being treated for overdose, hypothermia, and water in the lungs, though obviously he'll be held on a psychiatric hold."

Raffi blinked dumbly. _What_? "You must have the wrong person," she said. Rios was on a ship out in space somewhere, not on Earth, and he certainly wouldn't try to _kill_ himself.

The woman glanced at her PADD. "No, we have the right person. Are you sure there's no one else we can contact?"

Raffi shook her head. "No. Thanks."

The woman nodded and disconnected the link.

Raffi sat on the floor for several long moments, trying to get her brain to work. It was a mistake. It had to be.

And in any case, why should she care? She hadn't spoken to Rios in a year and a half. She was probably only his emergency contact because he'd never thought to change it. Surely his captain on the _ibn Majid_ would have been notified.

 _Found in the bay_. _Barbiturates_.

Raffi drummed her fingers on the carpet, clenching her jaw against the urge bubbling up inside. She didn't need this right now.

She pushed herself up off the floor and rifled through her clutter for a jacket, then headed out. She was jittery as she stood in line at the transport station, and it only increased once she found herself outside the doors of the hospital. Yet she managed to steel herself and go inside.

"I'm looking for Cristóbal Rios," she told the person at reception. "The hospital called to tell me he was here."

The receptionist, a version of a hospitality hologram, was silent for a brief moment as it sifted through the records. "Fourth floor. Room 457."

"Thanks."

She headed for the lift, heart rate increasing with each step. When she got off on the fourth floor, her pulse was pounding. She walked down the pristine hallway in search of the room number and drew to a stop when she found it.

 _You came this far_ , she chastised herself, even though every nerve ending was screaming for her to turn around and leave. Or find a bottle.

She stepped inside. The room was quiet save for the soft beeping of a bio monitor. Raffi moved around a curtain that was halfway drawn and sucked in a sharp breath when she laid eyes on her old friend.

He looked… _haggard_. And not just from the pale complexion left by the remnants of hypothermia. He hadn't shaved in days, maybe longer, there were dark crescents under his eyes, and he looked thinner in a definitively unhealthy way. Raffi barely recognized him.

A holographic stabilizer was positioned over his lungs, probably to filter out the water in them. Heat was emanating from the bio bed and being insulated by a blanket that covered most of his torso down to his feet.

Raffi moved closer and carefully took a seat in an empty chair by the bed. Something tugged at her bitter heart and she reached out to take Rios's hand. His fingers were cold.

"God, Cris," she breathed.

The monitor beeped out its steady readings.

Rios's fingers twitched in her palm and she stiffened. His eyelids fluttered open and he lolled a groggy gaze her direction. She didn't know what to do. But there wasn't surprise, irritation, or even disappointment at seeing her there. Just a depth of devastation that stole her breath away.

"Raf." His voice broke and he squeezed her hand hard, half pulling her forward, half rolling toward her. She moved automatically, leaning down as he pulled her into an awkward, desperate embrace, clinging to her like she was the only thing left in the world.

It terrified her.

But she sat there and let him until he gasped and collapsed back on the bed, a hand pressing weakly against his chest.

"What the hell were you doing?" she blurted. "Jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge drugged to the gills? Were you actually trying to kill yourself or did you just slip?"

Rios blinked at her dazedly. "What?" He roved his gaze around the room, brows knitting together. "How did I get here?"

"Some people found you in the bay and dragged your ass out before you drowned," she said snippily. She didn't know why she was angry, that her best friend from the Academy had tried to kill himself? That things had gotten that bad for him and she hadn't known? That her own wallowing in self-pity and misery had been interrupted by his and now she was here and she was supposed to be what, a shoulder for him? When he hadn't been there for her.

"The bay?" he repeated slowly.

Raffi snorted. "Yeah. Guess those drugs left you with some brain damage. How could you do something so stupid?"

"I didn't!" he protested vehemently, then winced as the exertion pulled on his chest. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about but I didn't try to kill myself. I was…" His face scrunched up as he tried to remember. "I was walking home after getting drunk at a bar. I wasn't even near the bridge."

Now it was Raffi's turn to frown. Either he was confused or simply trying to deny he was suicidal to avoid the psych hold. "What are you even doing on Earth?" she asked instead. "Why aren't you on the _ibn Majid_?"

Something dark and haunted filled his eyes and he turned his head away. "It's been decommissioned," he said hollowly.

That was surprising news. "What happened?" she asked in a level tone when he didn't elaborate.

Rios squeezed his eyes shut, his breaths hitching now and the holographic stabilizer beeping in response.

"Okay, okay," Raffi hushed. "You don't have to tell me right now. Just- just take it easy."

She sat there awkwardly as Rios seemed to drift off again. She wished she'd brought a damn PADD with her so she could look up what had happened with the _ibn Majid_. It must have been bad to reduce Rios to…this.

Cris slept on, the bio machines doing their thing to filter out the sea water and barbiturates from his system. The longer Raffi sat there, watching with nothing to do, the more antsy she became. She picked at strands of her hair, putting them in her mouth nervously as her leg jiggled uncontrollably. She needed a drink. Or a hit.

Biting her lip, she gave Rios a long look before standing up and leaving his room. She stopped in the doorway to look up and down the hall. A nurse went into a room several doors down. Another was talking to a doctor at the end of the hallway near the lift. The nurse's station was vacant.

Raffi carefully crossed the aisle, glancing every direction as surreptitiously as possible as she sidled up to the replicator. She just needed a pick-me-up, something to keep her going until she knew what was going to happen with Rios.

She tried not to fidget suspiciously as she punched in the request for a stimulant and waited for it to materialize. Once it was ready, she snatched up the hypospray and beat a hasty path down the hall to the stairwell. She was careful not to make any noise with the door as she slipped onto the landing. The shakes were bad now and she raised the hypospray to her neck.

"He's still alive," a voice echoed up from the floor below.

Raffi froze.

"How is that possible?" a second voice snapped. "You told me you were thorough."

"I _was_. A boat on the water found him and got him medical help."

Raffi almost dropped the hypospray. She pressed herself against the wall and held her breath.

"I can finish the job," the first voice went on. Both were female.

"No. It was supposed to look like a suicide."

Raffi's blood ran cold. And wait a second, didn't she know that voice? She edged herself forward to the railing and chanced a look down. She only caught the back of a brunette's head…and was that a _Starfleet uniform_? The other voice must have been on a comm link.

"Then how would you like me to proceed?" the woman in the stairwell said stiffly.

"Rios knows too much. We will have to implement a memory wipe."

"It would take too long to perform a precise one."

"It does not have to be precise. Neurological damage would not be unexpected after his recent incident."

Raffi's heart dropped into the pit of her stomach and she had to stifle an audible breath. Inching back to the door, she opened it as silently as possible and slipped back onto the hospital floor. There still weren't many nurses about and she sprinted back to Rios's room.

"Cris, wake up, come on." She grabbed his shoulders and shook him, eliciting a groan as his eyelids fluttered heavily. Damn, the barbiturates. Raffi snapped her gaze down to the hypospray she still had in her hand. She no longer needed it now with the adrenaline coursing through her system. She pressed it to Rios's neck instead and injected the stimulant.

"Mmph," he moaned. "Raf?"

"We need to go, now." She grabbed his arm and hauled him upright. The bio monitor started beeping more urgently and she swiped at it to shut it off.

"What's goin' on?" he slurred, grimacing as she swung his legs over the edge of the bed. She cursed under her breath at his lack of shoes.

"You're right, you didn't jump off the bridge. Someone drugged and pushed you," she explained hurriedly.

"What?" He continued to frown in confusion, but then something seemed to click and he went rigid.

Raffi wanted to ask what the hell was going on but they didn't have time. She slung one of his arms over her shoulder and they made their way to the door, pausing to glance if the coast was clear. She didn't see any doctors or nurses—or Starfleet officers for that matter.

Rios bit back several grunts as they hobbled down the hallways and Raffi tried to ignore the way his breaths started wheezing. She ducked into an empty patient room and deposited him on the bed.

"Sit tight," she said and slipped back out. She found a storage room with some scrubs and snatched a pair off the shelf. Shoes were going to be tricky.

Rios was thankfully where she'd left him and she hurriedly helped him out of the patient scrubs and into the nurse ones. Then they continued their harried escape from the hospital. By the time they reached the street, Raffi was seeing Starfleet uniforms everywhere she turned and jumping at every flash of movement in her peripheral vision.

It was a miracle they made it to a transport station, that no one stopped them since they didn't look exactly inconspicuous, and that they made it all the way back to Raffi's apartment in one piece.

Rios was ready to collapse the moment they got through the door, and Raffi had to brush several empty liquor bottles off the couch before laying him down on it. Sweat had plastered his hair to his forehead and he was breathing harshly, arms wrapped around his chest.

"Shit," she muttered. "You probably needed more treatment."

"I'll- be- fine," he said hoarsely, dropping his head back on the cushion and closing his eyes.

Raffi sank onto her haunches on the floor, her own adrenaline high beginning to crash. "Why is Starfleet trying to kill you, Cris?"

He didn't open his eyes, but his throat bobbed and she thought she saw a tear trying to squeeze past his tightly shut lids. "You were right," he said. "There's something… _wrong_ in Starfleet. I did something…we- we were _ordered_ to." His breath hitched. "I don't know how to live with it," he whispered brokenly.

Raffi reached out and took his hand in both of hers. "What Cris? What did you do?"

He shook his head. "Vandermeer couldn't live with it. He murdered two beings of first contact and then blew his brains out right in front of me. Left me to finish his orders and cover it up. If I didn't…Starfleet Security was going to destroy the _ibn Majid_ , with all hands on board. _Starfleet_." He looked at Raffi with sheer devastation.

She had no words for what she was hearing. If she hadn't already spent the past few years believing something was corrupt in Starfleet, she may not have believed this herself. She licked her dry lips. "Who ordered it?"

He was silent for a long moment, breaths coming more shallow and painful. "Commodore Oh," he said quietly.

Raffi straightened. That's who she'd heard in the stairwell on the comm link.

"Cris…" She shook her head. "Why didn't you come to me?"

He turned that pained, watery gaze back toward her. "I thought they might have been watching me. For six months after I was reassigned to Earth and the _ibn Majid_ erased from the records, I tried to be the dutiful Starfleet officer, tried to live with it. They discharged me last week, claimed it was post-traumatic dysphoria, and I've been in a bottle since." He snorted. "The stressor that pushed me over the edge, I'm sure they were planning on saying." He sobered, expression pinching again as his voice dropped low. "And I didn't want you to know what I'd become."

Raffi's own eyes welled with tears, and she cast a somber gaze around her dismal apartment with its empty booze bottles lying everywhere and tangled holograms spouting conspiracy theories. "You'll get no judgment from me," she said sagely.

Rios's eyes turned sad. "I'm sorry."

For this, for the past. For everything.

"Yeah, me too."

They settled into a commiserative silence, two once bright and rising stars who'd had the promise of everything at their feet.

How far they both had fallen.


	13. Keep Your Friends Close

"Keep Your Friends Close"

_2389_

_"What have you done?"_

_"I had orders."_

_"To murder two people for no reason?"_

_"It was a black-flag directive. They would have destroyed my entire ship if I didn't."_

_"Since when are you in the business of trading lives? Who gave you the goddamn right to make that decision?"_

_"That's the burden of being Captain!"_

_"That's crap! We could have figured this out together. As a crew; as a family. But instead you chose to become a cold-blooded killer! I'm ashamed to call you my captain."_

_The phaser, hanging laxly in its wielder's hand, lifted up. It barely touched the captain's mouth before the blast splattered blood and brain matter over the bulkhead._

_Water rushed up and over him, dragging him down into its darkened depths. He couldn't move, couldn't scream as it tossed him around like a rag doll. A puppet with its strings cut. That's all he was._

_The water rippled, light lancing across the surface. An amorphous hand reached toward him, the lilting notes of a lullaby singing in the distance._

"Cris."

He jolted awake with a gasp, blinking rapidly to clear the remnants of darkness from his vision. Raffi was standing over him, mouth pursed as though unhappy. He looked around the small living room, dark save for the glow from the holographic projections on the walls. He'd fallen asleep on the couch.

Pushing himself upright, he winced at the tightness in his lungs and braced an arm across his chest as several guttural coughs punched their way out.

"You still need a doctor."

"I'm fine," he grunted.

Raffi was silent for a moment. "Agent X probably thinks you just slipped away on your own, but they'll eventually find that the hospital called me, so we should get out of here."

It took Rios a moment to process what she was saying. "Shit."

The last thing he'd wanted was to come crashing in and ruining Raffi's life. Such as it was. The state of her apartment reminded him of his own living situation these past few months.

"I need to go home," he blurted, shifting his legs over the edge of the sofa and planting his bare feet on the floor. His brow pinched as he realized he had no shoes, no clothes, nothing.

Raffi snorted. "Yeah, they'll definitely be watching for you there."

He shook his head. She didn't understand; there were things there, things he couldn't leave behind. "I'm supposed to go on the run like this?" he asked sarcastically.

She rolled her eyes. "I'll replicate you some clothes." She frowned as he started coughing again. "And call a doctor. Don't worry, I know a guy who doesn't ask questions."

Rios didn't know if he should feel comforted by that. He rubbed at his chest, hating the vice-like clenching around his sternum, like he was ever so slowly being suffocated.

Raffi walked over to her replicator and started punching in for a pair of clothes. A pair of jeans, long sleeve shirt, and boots materialized. She brought them over and set them on the couch beside him. "Hang tight while I get that doctor."

Rios watched her head out the door. Gritting his teeth, he struggled to change out of the hospital scrubs and into the fresh clothes. Once the boots were strapped up, he forced himself to stand and started staggering toward the door. He hesitated though, and turned to grab a PADD instead. He typed out a message thanking Raffi for everything but saying he didn't want to upend her life or put her in danger. If anyone came looking for him, she could deny she ever saw him. He left the PADD propped up on the couch where he'd been sitting and then left.

It took him a while to figure out where he was as he made his way down the street on foot, predawn light just barely illuminating the sidewalk beneath his feet. He avoided the transporter station in case there was an alert out on him. Which meant it was a rather long walk to his place and by the time he reached it, his chest was burning and each breath felt like stabbing needles.

He stood under the shade of a tree across the street and watched the complex for several minutes as people exited on their way to work or other daily activities. He couldn't tell if anyone else was watching it; no one was loitering outside pretending they were doing something else.

Still, he made his way around back to the entrance off the side alley. It looked clear, so he slipped inside and took the stairwell up to the second floor. Each step was killing him and he regretted coming. But he had to. He had very little left and he wasn't going to let Starfleet take every last scrap from him.

The hall outside his apartment was clear so he ventured to his door and went inside. The place was a mess, but not because anyone had searched through his things—there were empty liquor bottles everywhere, along with plates of half-eaten food he hadn't shoved back into the replicator to be reabsorbed.

He crossed the living room toward his bedroom, intent on packing quickly and beating a hasty exit. A figure stepped out from the darkened room, swift as a shadow, and delivered a roundhouse kick to his sternum that punched what little breath he had from his lungs and sent him slamming back into the floor.

A woman dressed all in black strode toward him. Gasping raggedly, Rios managed to roll himself upright and throw an arm up to fight back. She caught his wrist deftly and twisted his arm up behind his head, then snaked her arm around his throat to trap him in a headlock. Spots burst across his vision as he struggled on his knees to gain some leverage. She pressed something to his temple. There was a sharp jolt like micro spikes piercing his skin.

"Shh," she crooned. "You'll feel better when you can't remember anything. Trust me."

His heart seized and he struggled harder, but he couldn't draw in enough oxygen and his lungs felt like they were about to explode.

There was the sound of shattering glass and a reverberation through the person restraining him. Then her arm slipped away and she toppled to the side. Rios fell forward, coughing and choking and flailing blindly at the thing attached to his face.

"Easy, easy, I got it."

Someone knelt beside him and peeled the device off. He winced at the sting and blinked up through blurry vision. "Raf?"

She scowled at him as she helped him sit up. "What the hell did I tell you, hm?"

He twisted and saw his attacker lying unconscious behind him, face hidden by a curtain of hair. Shards of a broken bottle lay scattered around her. He turned back to Raffi.

"Did you follow me?" he asked stiffly.

"No," she snapped. "I got back with the doctor and found your note. Figured this was your next stop on your list of stupid things to do. The doc's pissed I woke him up at the crack of dawn for nothing, by the way." She shook her head. "I should just let you run off and get yourself killed. I have my own life to ruin in case you haven't noticed!"

They stared at each other for a long moment, both breathing heavily.

Rios swallowed. "I know. I didn't want…I'm sorry you got dragged into this."

Raffi's expression was hard but her voice calm and tired when she said, "Well I'm here now."

His heart clenched. He wanted to trust her, he did. Raffi had been a rock in his life for so long.

But so had Captain Vandermeer. And Starfleet. And they had both so violently betrayed him.

Still, he nodded and tried to stand. Raffi gripped his arm to steady him.

"I just need to pack a few things," he said.

She nodded. "Make it quick. It might just be the one here—for now."

Rios's nerves were thrumming with anxiety as he glanced at the unconscious assailant, the side of his head still smarting from what she'd tried to do to him. He tore his gaze away and staggered into the bedroom, painful coughs jarring his chest. He grabbed a duffel bag from the closet—his few prized possessions already buried at the bottom of it—and added some clothing. Then he zipped it shut and came back out.

Raffi arched a surprised brow. "That was fast."

"You said to be."

"Yeah."

He let her peek out into the hall to check the coast was clear before they made their way out through the route he'd come in. No one accosted them, but they both kept casting furtive looks over their shoulders the further down the street they walked.

Raffi reached to take the duffel from him and he automatically stiffened.

"You look ready to fall over," she pointed out.

He grimaced. He actually didn't know if he'd make it back to Raffi's place, and at this point part of him thought dropping dead would just solve everything. But he let her take the bag and doggedly pressed on.

There was a man standing in her apartment when they finally returned, looking impatient.

"Sorry, Doc," Raffi apologized, setting the bag down and steering Rios back to the couch. "Ran into some complications."

The man sniffed. "You owe me for this one, Raffi."

"Yeah, yeah. I got a bottle of '72 Chateau Picard around here somewhere. It's yours."

He hummed as though agreeable and moved in to see his patient. Rios broke into a fit of coughs.

"Almost drowning?" the doctor checked.

"Yeah," Raffi replied. "He's got that nasty cough and is in pain."

Rios wanted to glower at them that he could speak for himself—except he truly had no breath to.

The doctor pulled out a medical tricorder and went through the motions. He then switched it out for another device from his bag. "Your lungs need to be aspirated. Lay back and don't move. It's not instantaneous."

Rios shifted to lie down, his entire body taut with discomfort and guardedness. He tried to focus on breathing steadily even though the prone position made it more difficult. The click and beep of the aspirator nearly made him jump, as it sounded too similar to that memory wiping device.

"Try to relax," the doctor coached.

Raffi wordlessly went around to stand at the other side of the sofa at Rios's head, and he tried to let himself put his trust in her watching out for him.

He wasn't sure how long the procedure took, for at one point he somehow drifted off, the toll of everything in the past twenty-four hours catching up to him. The next time he woke, it was to Raffi gently shaking him.

"Hey, we should go."

He blinked blearily. The doctor was gone. The holographic projections on the wall were gone, as were the PADDs and computer. There were some duffel bags by the door, including his.

He sat up warily, but the pain in his chest had been reduced to a mild soreness and he could breathe again. Raffi handed him a jacket she must have replicated because it wasn't one of his.

"Where are we going?" he asked numbly as he slipped it on.

Raffi shrugged. "I got us one of those hovercars for cross-country road trips. We'll just head east and see where we go from there."

Rios looked around her apartment. "I'm sorry." It was a useless apology.

"This was never home," she replied. She sighed and gave him a sad, wistful smile. "You were, once upon a time."

When they were young and idealistic and believed in moral absolutes and the glory of the Federation they'd pledged to serve.

"You were too," he said softly.

They picked up their bags and headed out.


	14. Drifting

"Drifting"

_2389-2390_

They drove with no destination in mind, save to get as far away from San Francisco as possible. That first day on the road, Raffi drove all through the night, with the help of a stimulant she'd replicated before leaving the apartment. She had a stash in her bag for when she'd need it. Rios didn't notice her use it; he was still recovering from that attempt on his life and had fallen asleep in the passenger seat of the hovercar.

They didn't talk about what happened. Raffi didn't ask for more details on the _ibn Majid_ and Rios didn't volunteer any. He wasn't doing well, she could tell. He flinched in his sleep, an occasional whimper slipping past his lips without his knowledge. He'd come awake with a heaving gasp like he'd just woken from drowning and then curl against the door shivering.

One time he woke abruptly and immediately told her to pull over. She'd barely stopped on the side of the road before he was falling halfway out the door and retching in the gravel. Raffi climbed over the seat and knelt behind him, one hand rubbing circles on his back and the other braced across his forehead.

"Okay, honey, you're okay."

He wasn't, though.

And neither was she, really.

The stimulants kept her going initially but after two days on the road she needed a drink, _badly_. She pulled into a tourist spot outside a local bar.

"Let's get drunk," she declared.

Rios wordlessly climbed out of the hovercar and followed her.

She downed her first glass in one go, practically inhaling it. Rios slumped in the stool beside her and took his drink at a more sedate pace but with a steadiness that suggested he was well-practiced at this routine. They drank until the proprietor started giving them shifty looks, then Raffi ordered one last bottle and took it and Rios back out to the hovercar where they sprawled out in an awkward arrangement of limbs across the seats.

She knocked back a hearty swig and passed him the bottle. He took his own drag and handed it back.

"Still no idea where we're going?" he asked.

"Wherever the wind takes us," she replied with a drunken smile and raising of the bottle.

They were sloshed by the time they finished it off, Raffi in that blissful numb state she'd missed these past couple of days.

The next morning they dragged their asses out of the hovercar and found a place to get some coffee, which they both chugged like it was an instant miracle cure. It wasn't. But Raffi had packed hypos for this too. She was, after all, a functioning alcoholic.

They got back on the road and simply drove, the miles rolling by aimlessly. Rios started taking his turn at the helm, though his level of concentration seemed to be by sheer force of will alone.

They stopped at scenic landmarks and tourist spots, living on coffee, liquor, and sometimes food. Sometimes they drove all night and sometimes they stopped to get a room at a motel for some decent sleep and a shower. It was an easy, mindless routine, and being out in the beautiful countryside helped Raffi ignore the sad state of her life.

But she couldn't forget.

"We should find proof of what Starfleet Security did," she said one day while Cris was driving and she had a PADD in her lap. She was trying to look up the _ibn Majid_ as a starting point but nothing was coming up. Rios had said the ship's records had been erased, but this was on such a thorough scale that not even she could mine past the shield for the gold nuggets.

"You won't find anything," Rios said tonelessly.

"That's the spirit," she muttered as she swiped through a few more avenues in search of _something_. "Damn."

"Told you."

"There has to be something," she pressed. "A mention somewhere in an unrelated file. A shipping manifest, someone's letter home. Come on, Cris, you knew everything about the _ibn Majid_."

"And what would be the point?" he rejoined. "It's not like anyone would believe us. Two outcasts expelled from Starfleet in disgrace with 'mental issues' in our files."

"We can't just let them get away with it!"

"They already have."

"And you're content to give up?" she spat, anger churning her blood with vitriol. "You, Picard, even Vandermeer. Starfleet betrays you and you just decide to throw in the towel."

The hovercar swerved as Rios brought it to a jarring halt. "Don't you dare talk about _him_!" he seethed. "You weren't there. You didn't have to stare down the barrel of a cannon aimed at your _entire crew_ if you didn't betray everything you believed in, everything you were!" He pounded a fist against his chest. "They would have destroyed my entire ship. You want to go digging at it? What lengths do you think they'll go to, to make sure it stays covered up!"

He rocked back, face red, and slammed his palms against the console.

Raffi twisted to look out her window, fuming inside.

After a few moments, Rios veered them back onto the road. Neither of them said another word to each other for the rest of the day, and when they stopped at a motel for the night, they got separate rooms.

Raffi ordered a bottle of vodka from the replicator and slumped on the bed, hating herself as much as she hated the rest of the world and everyone who'd let her down.

She was started out of sleep later by the sound of something hitting the wall. Not quite fully awake, she banged the wall in a return signal to shut the hell up. Then she heard a scream, a long, tortured cry partially muffled by the walls. And she remembered Rios was in the next room.

She scrambled from her bed and out the door in only her shorts and tee. For a split moment, she expected that bitch from his apartment to be attacking him. But when she burst into his room, it was dark, save for the eerie glow of a porch light streaming through the uncovered window, and the only one there was Cris, thrashing on the bed in a twisted tangle of sheets.

Raffi flung the door shut behind her and rushed to his side. "Cris. Cris!"

He was drenched in sweat, head twisting back and forth and choked sounds stalled in his throat.

Raffi grabbed his flailing arms and tried to pin them down. "Cris! Wake up!"

His eyes shot open, black and unseeing, but his writhing eased.

Raffi released his arms and captured his face in her hands. "Cris, look at me. You're safe. You hear me? I've got you. I've got you."

That familiar, harsh gasp of a dying man expanded his chest as his body bucked beneath her, eyes clearing of their momentary madness and snapping toward hers. Then he squeezed them shut and let out a strangled sob. Raffi drew her legs up on the bed and bowed over him, cradling his head in her arms. Cold sweat mixed with hot tears dampened her shorts.

She didn't say anything. There were no words for this. Nothing she could do except sit and hold him in the dark, both of them broken shells of who they'd once been.

…

The next morning Raffi extricated herself from the bed and went to the replicator to make coffee. The earthy aroma filled her nostrils and prickled those sensory receptors in her brain with their tantalizing appeal. She took a small sip of the hot brew for herself before carrying it back over to the bed and sitting down.

Rios grimaced as he came awake, eyes squinting as he looked around the room. Raffi handed him the cup of coffee. He pushed himself up to sit against the wall and took a tentative sip. Neither of them said anything, but unlike the cold shoulder they'd been giving each other yesterday, this was a silence of understanding.

Raffi gave his knee a squeeze, then got up to go shower.

After more coffee and a change of clothes, they both looked marginally human again and got back on the road.

Rios never complained about the temperature, but Raffi noticed that despite the sweaters he kept wearing, he always seemed cold. Sometimes he'd crank up the heater in the hovercar; other times he'd just sit in the passenger seat hugging himself and look miserable.

So Raffi made the unilateral decision to change direction and head south for the desert. Maybe a warmer climate would do them both good.

…

They gradually stopped spending so much time on the road and started staying longer in the places they stopped at, sometimes a few days, sometimes over a week. It wasn't like they had any place to be. They'd stay until they got bored or antsy and then they'd head to the next stopping point. Currently they were in a small town in New Mexico.

Rios was out…somewhere. He'd taken to long walks in the countryside, sometimes for hours, while Raffi occupied herself with trying out the local vegetation. There was some nice shit growing out here, particularly of the smoking variety.

Raffi stared at the empty, transparent holo screen in front of her, trying to work up the nerve to make the call. It was Gabriel's birthday. He was sixteen now. Raffi hadn't seen him in three years.

She took a swig of alcohol to steel her nerves, then tapped the screen. There was the small pulsing frequency of the call going out, but a moment later it was shut off. Raffi frowned, wondering if there'd been a glitch, and tried again. The same thing happened.

Her heart dropped into her stomach with a sickening squish. He'd rejected her call.

Hands shaking, she tried Jae. The signal pulsed and pulsed, and her heart rate quickened as she waited to see if it would be dropped as well.

The screen filled with a holo image of him and it took Raffi's breath away. He looked exactly the same, and Raffi self-consciously tried to smooth down her frazzled hair. "Hey, babe."

"Hey," he replied stiffly.

Raffi's throat constricted. "Is, um, is Gabe there? I wanted to wish him a happy birthday."

"He doesn't want to talk to you."

She swallowed hard. "And he has every right to be mad at me. But please, just a short hello. He's sixteen today."

Jae sighed. "I'm sorry, but he's made it very clear, he doesn't want to hear from you, and I'm going to respect his wishes."

Tears welled hotly in Raffi's eyes. "How is he?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from cracking. "Is he doing well? Are- are you both…?"

"We're fine," he said tersely. He let out a harsh breath. "You're still drinking?"

She glanced at the liquor bottle conspicuously in view and quickly moved it from the table to the floor.

Jae shook his head. "Don't call us again." He swiped his hand and hung up before Raffi could get another word out.

She stared at the translucent screen, chest tightening and tears spilling down her cheeks. She grabbed the bottle of liquor and chugged, trying to dislodge the spiky lump in her throat. A broken sob burst out and she slid from the chair to the floor. How had she ended up like this? This wasn't what her life was supposed to be. This wasn't what _she_ was supposed to be.

She was going to suffocate under the roiling anguish, anger, and grief, and so she snatched the pipe of snakeleaf off the nightstand and took a long, shaky inhalation. The effect was almost instantaneous, a wave of calmness sweeping through her veins.

It wasn't enough, though. With the pipe in one hand and the bottle in the other, she sat there in utter desolation, alternating between vices in a desperate attempt to make it all _stop_.

Eventually the haze of the snakeleaf and the warmth of the alcohol anesthetized the pain and carried her off to float in blissful nothingness.

Until something slapped her face, hard. She moaned, head lolling limply to the side. She barely felt the sting of the second slap. She tried to tell the offending thing to go away, but it came out in a slurred garble.

Arms slipped under her back and legs, and the next moment she was being lifted up in a whoosh. The room spun in a dizzying whirl of flashing lights and spots. Then her feet were being slammed down on tile and a splash of cold water struck her face. She spluttered but was too insensate to escape it.

Arms were wrapped around her torso and a body was pressing her against the wall to keep her upright. The pressure of the spray increased, frigid streams running down her face and neck and soaking her clothes. She gave a violent shiver.

Awareness gradually returned and she started making out a stream of Spanish curses.

"Ungh, stp," she grunted, shoving weakly.

The rapid Spanish continued, too fast for her to even clearly make out the cuss words she did know. But finally the water was shut off and Rios lifted her into his arms and carried her back out to lay her on the bed.

"What did you take?" he demanded, patting her cheek insistently again.

She tried to swat his hand away. "Nothing."

"Dammit Raffi!"

She heard him move away and start rifling through things on the floor. There was another curse under his breath, then what sounded like the faint tapping on a PADD. Then came the beep of the replicator. A moment later, a hypospray was pushed against her neck and depressed. A surge of chemicals flooded her system, neutralizing some of that blissful numbness she'd worked so hard to achieve. Raffi moaned at the spike of pain behind her eyelids it caused.

Rios let out a shaky breath and sank into a chair. "Goddammit, Raf," he muttered again.

She flung an arm over her eyes and tried to suppress another groan.

"You can't keep doing this."

She bristled and shifted her arm enough to shoot him a glower. "You're gonna tell me how to deal with my messed up life?" she scoffed. "You can't even deal with your own. So piss off."

Rios didn't say anything, didn't lose his temper, didn't snap back. He just sat there for a moment before wordlessly getting up and walking out.

Raffi slammed her head back against the pillow and mentally cursed herself. Maybe it was her fault and she drove everyone away.

Rios didn't come back that day. Raffi figured he'd gotten a separate room. But he didn't check on her the next morning, or that afternoon. Irritation and guilt niggled at her gut in a warring cycle. She finally dragged herself from bed and went outside. The sun was extra bright and she squinted painfully as she staggered to the reception desk to ask which room her friend had booked.

"He didn't," the receptionist replied.

Raffi frowned. She headed back outside, glancing at the parking lot where the hovercar still sat. Rios hadn't driven off without her. So where was he?

She went back to the room and tidied up a bit before opening the curtains. He'd probably gone off on one of his hikes.

Overnight though?

Raffi replicated some food, glanced at the bottle and pipe, and pushed them under the bed out of sight. She hung around the room, watching television, puttering around anxiously, all while keeping one eye out the window for when Rios came back.

He didn't.

Night fell and Raffi was alone once again. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't just drive off without Cris, but if he'd walked out on her for good then screw him.

She fished the bottle out from under the bed and popped it open to finish.

Rios was gone for two damn days before he finally showed up again. Raffi was half ready to cuss him out, but the words died on her tongue when he walked into the room, bruised and bloodied.

She jumped to her feet. "What happened?" Had Starfleet somehow tracked them down?

But Rios just shrugged and started to peel his jacket off, the movement eliciting a wince. If he'd been attacked, he would have been more worked up, Raffi was sure.

She eyed him warily for another moment as he shuffled over to the chair and slumped into it. When he didn't move, she walked to the replicator and punched in for a med kit. Taking the materialized kit, she went back and sat on the foot of the bed across from him, picking out a dermal regenerator. She then reached out to gingerly take his hand and laid it in her lap, running the dermal regenerator over scraped knuckles. She didn't comment on them; she recognized self-punishing behavior when she saw it.

She finished with one hand and reached for the other. "It was Gabriel's birthday," she said softly. "He refused to take my call."

Rios shifted his vacant gaze toward her, eyes turning commiserative. "I'm sorry."

"He has every right to hate me," she said, though the admission burned her soul. "I wasn't there for him, even before…" She choked off.

Rios was quiet for a moment, then, equally soft: "No one gets it all right, Raf."

She finished with his other hand and leaned forward to treat the swollen abrasions on his face.

"You can't do that to me again," he whispered after a few beats. "I can't…don't leave me with a dead body." He broke off with a hitched breath. "Not again."

"Hey." She set the dermal regenerator down and cupped the side of his bruised cheek. "That's not what I was trying to do. I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

He lifted pained eyes to hers. "After he killed them…Vandermeer…I went at him hard. Pretty hard." He looked away, squeezing his eyes shut against a welling of tears. "I saw when that last straw shattered in his eyes and he put the phaser in his mouth and blew his brains out. And now you're here, because of me, and I can't—"

"I was doing a good job of screwing up my life without you," Raffi interrupted. "Thanks for pulling me back." She brushed her thumb under his split cheekbone. "Don't you go getting yourself killed," she added with a sad smile. "You're all I have left."

He reached up to cover her hand with his. After a moment, she went back to gently wiping away his wounds.

If only the scars on the soul could be so easily erased.


	15. Lifeline

"Lifeline"

_2390_

Rios walked among the orchards outside the town they were currently staying at. They'd been on the road—on the _run_ —for several months now. And while there'd been no indication anyone was actively hunting for them— _him_ —he couldn't shake the edginess and trepidation prickling his nerves…well, everywhere.

He'd spent the last decade on a confined starship but here on Earth with the wide open country stretching out in every direction as far as the eye could see, he felt trapped.

They were careful. Never used any equipment that required identification. Never used their full names when talking to locals. Still, was this to be their life indefinitely? Wandering from town to town, always looking over their shoulder? Waiting for a shadow to attack in the dark, to feel that prick in the side of his skull one second before they utterly obliterated what was left of him? Or were they past that and a simple phaser shot would do?

Rios stuffed his hands in his pockets and hunched in on himself as he walked, feeling a chill despite the warm sun streaming down on him. He could still feel the sheer terror of that moment in his apartment, the sickening thought of what would have happened if Raffi hadn't come after him. As if he didn't have enough reasons not to sleep at night. If it wasn't nightmares of drowning, either literally or metaphorically, it was Vandermeer blowing his brains out right in front of Rios.

He stopped and slumped against a tree, pressing a palm against his eyes as the image flared to life anew. He couldn't shake it, no matter what he did. Alcohol numbed the gut-wrenching guilt and despair to a degree, but it didn't stop the dreams, the echo of painful words he wished he could take back…the occasional thought that he should just follow in the old man's footsteps.

But he'd made Raffi promise she wouldn't go down that road and he could hardly be a hypocrite on that. Still, he was fraying at the seams, slowly and irreparably. And he didn't know what to do about it.

He pushed himself up and continued walking. The orchard eventually gave way to dirt fields on the edge of a large recycling plant that was the town's main industry. Automated machinery sifted through old materials and decommissioned vehicles so the parts could be recycled into resources for new construction.

He walked the perimeter of the yard, meandering idly. Sometimes a shard of sunlight would reflect off a piece of metal and hurt his eyes.

But it was the dull and faded sangria paint that caught his attention and made him slow. There in the yard awaiting dismantlement was a beat-up freighter. Scratched and dented, it otherwise looked perfectly intact. Rios stared at it for a long time, feeling the same tug deep down in his bones that had stirred his heart since he was a boy every time he looked at the stars.

He finally turned and went to see if he could track down someone in charge. He found a manager signing off on a shipment of recycled material being transferred out.

"Excuse me," he said when the cargo vehicle had left.

The manager looked over. "Yes?"

"That Kaplan F17 you've got sitting out there, it's slated for recycling?"

"That's what we do here."

"I'd like to take it."

The manager quirked an odd look at him. "It barely runs. You'd be better off putting in for a new design over at the ship yards outside of Houston."

Rios's jaw tightened. Aside from the fact that he'd have to register a new ship on the spot and therefore risk drawing attention to his whereabouts, there was something about _this_ ship that he was drawn to. Maybe it was that in an unregistered ship he could finally escape this cage he felt like he was living in. Maybe it was that the Kaplan F17 could be operated by a single person and he wouldn't have to worry about a crew, or betrayal, or being responsible for lives that could drive him to compromise who he was.

Or maybe it was that this ship was as equally broken and discarded as he was. And he felt a foolish, sentimental hope that if he could fix it up, he could somehow fix himself.

"I want a restoration project," he said.

The manager shrugged. "You got a place to park it? I got the equipment to tow it out of here, but not far."

Rios thought about it for a moment. Taking this on would mean staying in this town for an indefinite amount of time, longer than he and Raffi were accustomed to doing. But once they got the ship up and running, they could move into it, stay away from people, try not to draw attention.

"How about in the field out back? I'll probably need access to some recycled materials as I go."

The manager shrugged again and waved for Rios to follow him. They made their way through the yard to the freighter where the manager then diverted a crane to tractor beam it up and out into the field beyond the plant.

"Thanks," Rios said, shaking the man's hand.

He merely waved and went back to his work.

Rios stood there and considered the starship for a long moment before finally heading inside. The bay door had to be wrenched open manually, and Rios wrinkled his nose at the musty air that hit his face. Sunlight lanced through the window up at the nose of the ship, filling the hold with a dusty haze. It was an open floor plan, with an upper and lower deck and mostly clear sight lines from either end of the central body of the ship. Rios liked that. It felt like breathing room. Like freedom.

He climbed the small stairs up to the bridge and tapped a main console experimentally. Nothing happened. He hadn't really expected it to. Who knew how long the ship had been sitting in that scrap heap, waiting its turn to be annihilated. Rios wrenched himself away from the analogy.

He exited the freighter and left the bay door open to air it out some while he headed back into town. He was gonna need help getting that hunk of metal up and running.

He found Raffi moseying around the local craft fair, admiring things but not taking any.

"Hey," he said, coming up to her.

"Hey."

"I have something to show you."

She arched a brow at him. "Okay."

She followed without question as he led her out of town and through the orchards. She did, however, start to grow impatient.

"Rios, for the love of god, if we're not almost there I am turning around."

"We're almost there."

She huffed but didn't offer any more complaint. They finally reached the field where the freighter sat.

Raffi glanced between it and him. "This is what you wanted to show me?"

"I know it doesn't look like much now," he said. "But after some fixing up, it'll be good as new."

She regarded him for an extra beat. "You're heading back out into space." It was a half statement, half question, delivered tonelessly so he couldn't quite discern what emotion she was feeling behind it.

"I can't stay on Earth," he answered. "Always looking over my shoulder, always wondering if Starfleet Security will eventually catch up, or whether they've decided I'm not worth it. I can't live like that. I feel like a fish in a bowl. A very large bowl, but nonetheless."

Raffi sighed but her expression was understanding.

"You could come with me," he added hopefully.

She was contemplative for a moment before shrugging. "Not like anything's holding me here." She flicked another unimpressed look at the freighter. "This thing even operational?"

Rios quirked a small smile at her. "I was hoping you'd help me with that. Once the system's online, we can retrofit everything from the ground up. Got a recycling plant right here for the raw components we need." He gestured behind him. "You in?"

She smiled back. "Aye aye, Captain."


	16. La Sirena

"La Sirena"

_2390_

Raffi fiddled with yet another transducer underneath the bridge console, trying to reroute the power cell. "Try it now."

She waited as Rios presumably tapped the console. A moment later the lights flickered and the systems whirred, but then it all sputtered and shut down again. Raffi dropped her head back against the floor with a vexed sigh.

Rios knelt down and peered under the console. "I thought you were the top of your class in your operations courses?"

"You know how long it's been since those engineering courses?" she groused as she crawled out. "Besides, didn't you take some and get high marks too?"

"Eh, it's been a while."

She huffed and swiped some stray curls out of her face. She was ready to call it quits on this thing but knew Rios would absolutely refuse to listen to reason. They'd gotten a new power cell, but somewhere in this dump the connections were just _not_ getting there. They should just chuck this thing back over the fence.

Raffi heaved another sigh as she sat cross-legged on the floor and considered her options. This meant something to Cris, so she wasn't going to give up just yet. "Let's try rerouting through the auxiliary."

They got up and made their way to another conduit. Rios removed the paneling and Raffi once again got on the floor so she could reach in and try to finagle something together.

" _La Sirena_ ," Rios said abruptly.

"What did you just call me?" Not that it didn't sound nice to the ear but Raffi had never gotten around to mastering Spanish. Too busy with Romulan and all that.

"The ship. I'm going to name her _La Sirena_."

"Sounds nice. What's it mean in English?"

"The mermaid."

Raffi paused in her task to throw him a dubious look. "The mermaid?" she repeated, trying not to smirk. "Okay. Why that?"

Rios shrugged. "Mermaids are a symbol of beauty."

"I thought they lured sailors to shipwreck on the rocks."

Rios did smirk. "That would be fitting given her current state." His smile dipped and he shook his head. "But my mother liked them, and in her culture they represented beauty and were associated with a goddess." He grew quiet in a way that had Raffi once again pausing to look at him. He blinked when he noticed her staring and tried to force that smile back. "I'd like one beautiful thing to hold onto in this life."

Raffi gave him a sympathetic quarter smile in return and went back to wrestling with the conduit. A moment later, the systems whirred again as they came online, soft blue lights filling the deck with an almost ethereal glow. Raffi sat up, grinning. "We're in business."

Rios laughed and gave her a high-five.

…

They spent the next few days working on the ship, getting the essential systems up and running without any kinks before they'd focus on the structural necessities. The technology on board turned out to be rather sophisticated, suggesting the ship wasn't as old as it looked. Raffi wondered what had befallen it that it should end up scrapped before its time.

Looking at the way Rios threw himself into fixing her up, Raffi realized sometimes the universe just hands you a raw deal. And there was something worthy about trying to salvage some beauty from the wreckage.

Raffi still spent her nights back at the motel for some sleep and her customary bottle of wine, whereas Rios opted to stay on the ship, even though it wasn't even decked out for living in. He'd be sleeping on the cold hard floor. If he slept at all. Raffi knew he only caught a few hours here and there.

She had to bring him coffee and food from the motel replicator since the ship didn't have a functioning one yet. If it weren't for her, she imagined Rios would forget to even eat.

One day while making her trek out to the field—and why did it have to be parked so far away?—she passed through the local craft fair and came to a stop as something caught her eye. There was a table of small ceramic figurines, all handmade. And one of them was a mermaid.

Raffi went over and picked it up, admiring the crackle glaze that sparkled in the sunshine with teal and cerulean speckles.

"You like it?" the stall owner asked.

"Yeah," she replied.

"I can wrap it for you."

Raffi smiled. "Thanks."

She handed it back and the creator of the piece carefully rolled it up in tissue paper and placed it in a small paper bag.

"Have a nice day," the woman said.

"You too."

When she arrived at the _La Sirena_ , Rios was already working. Or still working.

"Coffee," Raffi announced, knowing it was the best incentive to get him to take a break.

He set down whatever tools he was working with and came over to join her on the floor on the main deck.

"You need to get some tables and chairs in here," she commented.

"Lunch yard tables," he replied. "You remember those metallic ones at school, grated surface?"

"No banquet table and throne?" she quipped.

"Take up too much space." He took a drink of the coffee, and since he was already sitting for that, he absentmindedly started pulling out the tray bake she'd brought as breakfast as well.

"I got you something." Raffi handed him the small bag.

He looked genuinely taken aback and reverently pulled out the tissue paper wrapped figurine. He was careful as he unwrapped it, and then he simply sat and stared at the little mermaid.

"I know it's too early for a christening," Raffi said. "And you should have a bed before a housewarming gift. But there you go."

He looked up, and there was a glimmer of moisture in his eyes, which had not been Raffi's intention. " _Gracias, hermana_."

She smiled. That one she knew.


	17. Fracture

"Fracture"

_2390_

Rios knew going into this restoration project that it would take a while. He and Raffi were a two-man crew fixing up a freighter on their own. And they were making progress at a reasonable, expected rate.

But now that the prospect of true escape was at his fingertips, Rios was becoming more and more anxious to get off planet as quickly as possible. He worked all day and long into the night, running on this almost feverish burst of paranoia. Yet things still weren't coming together fast enough.

Until he realized he had reinforcements right at his disposal.

"This ship has emergency holograms, doesn't it?" he asked Raffi, sweeping onto the bridge one afternoon where she was working.

"Uh, yeah, I think so."

"If we activate them they can help us get the work done that much faster."

"Huh," she said. "Why didn't we think of that sooner?" She swiveled in her chair and pulled up the systems at that station. "Looks like the basic installation comes with five emergency programs," she reported. She frowned and then raised her eyebrows dubiously. "Including a…hospitality hologram. Need a personal valet?" she quipped, throwing Rios a teasing look.

He waved a hand impatiently. "Bring them up."

She huffed and went through a sequence. "It's prompting for customization. Looks like the system was completely wiped before the ship was slated for recycling." She leaned back in her seat. "Wow…there's a lot of options."

Rios leaned over to look at them. He really didn't care what the holograms looked like…except, he didn't want them looking like regular people—like regular _crew_ members. All of a sudden the faces of people he once knew were flashing through his mind, people he'd led, people he'd been responsible for…people he'd deceived. He didn't want a crew, _ever again_.

Without conscious thought, he leaned over and tapped the self-scan option. The computer initiated the scan immediately, taking in not only his physical specs, but making a map of neural pathways, personality, memories.

Raffi arched a brow at him. "Really? You want a bunch of emergency copies of yourself?"

He hadn't really been thinking about what he wanted, only what he didn't want, but her comment was like a bolt of lightning. He swiped the holographic specs away from her and enlarged the pattern that would be mapped out on the individual EH programs. Then with a thrust of both hands, he splintered it, dividing it up so that only pieces got overlaid with the five different holograms.

"What the hell did you do that for?" Raffi exclaimed. "You're gonna leave gaps."

He shook his head, not caring about that. "So if Starfleet Security ever catches up with me, I won't be completely erased. Somewhere, even if it's just in some stupid subroutine programing no one will give a second thought to, a piece of me will still exist."

Raffi's mouth moved soundlessly, obviously having no idea what to say to that. Rios spun around and strode away before she could start railing on him for going crazy.

That admission had startled him, and a small part of his rational brain recognized that he had lost it. He'd been growing more paranoid by the day, but he'd thought it would get better when they finally got away from Earth and away from the planetary headquarters of Starfleet. Maybe it was too late though, maybe he'd snapped.

He went to the cabin he'd chosen for himself and replicated a large bottle of alcohol to start downing. The quarters were bare save for a bed, replicator, and the mermaid figurine Raffi had given him. It needed more to make it home.

If home was even possible to find anymore.

The more he drank, the more he started second guessing himself and what he'd done. He still didn't want a bunch of holograms that mimicked a crew. But did he want a bunch of versions of himself? Versions that would know what he'd done and judge him for it.

He stumbled to the computer and remotely pulled up the EH programming, then started trying to manually delete those memories, those memories that had put him in danger to begin with—the memories that had destroyed everything he used to be.

He thought he got most of them from each of the five programs, though he was drunk and his efforts had been a tad haphazard in his manic haste. Either way, he was pretty sure he got enough of it. The great secret and shame of his life was secure once again, and his copies could be the pieces of himself he used to be.

The pieces he could no longer hold onto.

His door buzzed. "Cris, honey?"

He wanted to tell Raffi to piss off but found he lacked the wherewithal to do so. After a moment she simply let herself in.

Raffi sighed and leaned against the door, expression holding not an ounce of judgement or disgust, only sympathetic understanding.

Rios shifted on the floor. "This is what they call a psychotic break, isn't it?"

Raffi crossed the room and sat down beside him. "No, this is just being broken."

They were quiet for a moment.

"I don't want to be me anymore," he whispered. "I don't want to be this."

She drew one knee up to rest her arm on. "I don't know why. You're a pretty decent guy."

"I betrayed my morals, my conscience. The last thing I said to the man I thought of as my father was—" He choked off and looked away. He would never forgive himself for that, for driving the man he loved into taking his own life.

Raffi slipped her hand into his. "No one gets it all right," she said sadly, echoing the words he'd once said to her.

She tugged him closer and then let go of his hand so she could reach up and draw his head down onto her shoulder, carding her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes and let out a shuddering breath.

"And you can never be erased because I'll always remember who you are," she added softly.

Rios grimaced. "I should reset the EHs."

"Nah, leave 'em. Although, can I suggest we make a few adjustments so I don't have to try to tell a bunch of carbon copies of you apart?"

His mouth twitched. "Sure."


	18. It's Getting Crowded In Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided for this verse (and who knows, maybe all my fics) that the Engineering hologram would be spelled Ean, not Ian. I know what the show captions used, but I truly feel that was someone in production dropping the ball, given the other EHs have E names. Ean is also the Scottish spelling and the EEH is Scottish, so there you go.

"It's Getting Crowded In Here"

_2390-2391_

"This really isn't part of my programming."

"Shut up and pass me that power pack," Raffi replied, gesturing to the pile of supplies spread out around them.

The EMH picked it up and passed it over. She inserted it into the conduit.

"If you need me for a medical emergency, I'm happy to help," he pressed.

"Hey, the hospitality hologram is pulling his weight," she interrupted and looked across the deck to where the EHH was hovering over Rios, ready to pass him whatever he needed. From this distance they looked identical and it was trippin' her out. She heard Cris snap,

"Would you stop standing so close?"

"The hospitality program is supposed to cater to such needs," the EMH went on.

"Well, we don't have a medical emergency right now and I need help with this. Be a team player, buddy."

He sighed but didn't offer up any more protest as he continued to assist her.

The tactical EH sauntered onto the deck. He was at least easily distinguishable by the combat vest and long hair.

" _Los fásers son operativos._ "

" _Bien,_ " Rios responded. " _¿Luego los escudos?_ "

" _Sí, Capitán_."

"What's up, now?" Raffi shouted over at them, irritated when they spoke Spanish around her when she didn't understand it.

"Weapons are online and the ETH is going to work on the deflector shields next," Rios explained.

Raffi shook her head and finished up with the conduit she was working on, then put the panel back in place. Picking up her tool kit, she headed down the length of the deck to the stern of the ship to check in on the systems back there.

"Ach, a moment," the Engineering hologram called, coming over to intercept her. "I dinna have the components eh need ta power up the engines. Eh made a list for yoo. Eh wud dae it but eh I canna leave the ship."

Raffi stared at him with a befuddled expression; she'd only gotten about half of that.

"Yoo ken?" the EEH asked.

She gave him a grimacing smile and simply took the PADD he was holding from him and walked away, muttering that the accents were supposed to help distinguish the holograms, not drive her crazy.

Cris wasn't at the station he'd just been working on so Raffi did a visual scan of the ship in search of him. She spotted him up on the bridge by himself at one of the operations consoles. She made her way over and slouched in the captain's chair behind him.

"Are you dizzy yet from all these copies of yourself?" she quipped.

He glanced over his shoulder at her and smiled. "I think it's rather nice. Gives us all something to bond over, a sense of solidarity."

Her brows shot up to her hairline. "Uh…okay. You need anything from the recycling plant? The EEH just gave me a list of parts he needs."

Cris canted his head and made a thoughtful hum. "Nothing I can think of at the moment. But you're very kind to ask."

Raffi frowned. "Hang on…dammit, which one are you?"

He swiveled in his chair. "Navigation," he said and waved cheerily.

Raffi groaned and pushed herself out of the captain's chair. She needed a drink.

She headed down to the lower level and found Rios—or some version of him—getting coffee from the replicator. Though, holograms had no need for coffee.

"You the real Rios?" she snipped.

He paused. "Yes…"

"I take it back. Having these lookalikes everywhere I turn is weirding me out."

"Would you prefer a squad of your copies?" he asked mildly.

"God no." She deposited herself on one of the picnic table bench seats with a slump. "I know we did the accent thing to help tell them apart, but that Engineering one doesn't even speak a real language!"

Rios furrowed his brow and took a seat on the bench perpendicular to her. Before he could comment on it, though, another Cris butted in.

"Oh, you can't do a hard reset!" the ENH exclaimed, coming down the steps from the bridge. "I happen to like who I am."

Raffi stared at him dubiously. "You're him!" She gestured sharply at Cris, then grimaced at the ENH's puppy-like expression. "Sort of."

Now that the two of them were in the same space, the differences between them were obvious, not to mention the ENH's Irish accent was becoming a little more pronounced.

"Exactly!" he proclaimed. "We possess all the knowledge and qualities of the captain. What better attributes for us to serve him with?"

"You're just emergency holograms," Rios put in sourly. "You have a job to do and that's all you should care about."

"And we do care," the ENH insisted. "With all the conviction of a devout Starfleet officer like yourself."

"Don't call me that," Rios snapped, surging to his feet and walking away, abruptly ending the conversation.

The ENH looked crestfallen.

Raffi laid her head down on the table. She was starting to feel like the hall monitor and it was making her head spin.

…

"Miss Musiker, I'd like to talk to you about decorating your quarters."

Raffi gave the finely groomed hologram before her a once-over. Hospitality, she mentally filled in. "No 'Miss,'" she said. "And shouldn't getting the ship operational come first?"

"But you and the captain have been spending more nights here," he pressed. "And it should be homey and accommodating according to your tastes, which I'd be happy to help with."

"I don't have any tastes." She paused as she thought about it. "Just make sure a bottle of Burgundy is on the table at the end of each day."

He opened his leather file case and made a note. "What about the captain?"

Raffi shrugged. "I don't know. Ask him."

"Ah, well," he hedged. "The captain hasn't been very receptive to my overtures."

"Well, you're a piece of him, aren't you? So don't you already know what he would want?"

The EHH sighed. "Unfortunately, I don't have _that_ piece. The captain made some deletions shortly after the initial self-scan—rather carelessly, I might add—and I no longer have certain facts at my disposal."

Raffi frowned at that tidbit. It must have happened that night she'd found Cris drunk in his quarters. Oh well.

"I can't help you," she said.

The EHH sighed again in disappointment and left.

A little while later Rios's yelling could be heard throughout the ship.

"Piss off before I delete you permanently!"

…

Raffi walked into Sickbay after getting a vague message from the EMH about having something to discuss with her. The place was shaping up nicely.

"What is it?" she asked.

The EMH shifted nervously. "I don't want to violate patient confidentiality," he began. "But I need some guidance."

She quirked a confused look at him.

"I've noted the captain's sleeping patterns, or lack thereof. I have serious concerns about his health, but any attempts to broach the subject with him are met with threats of deactivation."

Raffi exhaled in understanding. "Yeah, you're not gonna get anywhere on that."

"I want to help," he insisted.

"You have his memories. You know why he can't sleep."

The EMH sighed. "Yes, and I hate to see him suffer for it."

She gave him a sad smile. "There are some things that just can't be fixed."

He looked genuinely distressed by that notion.

Raffi canted her head as a mind-blowing thought occurred to her. "You really do have his heart. It's not just your programming to care about a patient."

Hands in his pockets, he gave her a helpless shrug. Then he hesitated. "I've observed some of your own struggles. I'd be happy to offer my assistance."

Raffi rolled her eyes and held up a hand. "No thanks. This is actually the best I've been in a long while."

"You're barely functioning," he countered.

"Barely functioning is probably the most me and Rios will ever get," she said ruefully.

…

Raffi stood in front of the Engineering hologram, squinting as she tried to decode his words. It wasn't happening.

The ENH came hurrying over and eagerly offered to translate, he and the EEH sharing ridiculous grins and winks so much that Raffi finally just threw her hands up and walked away.

She made her way to the bridge where she found the ETH lounging in the operations chair, half asleep. Which was ludicrous because holograms didn't even need to sleep!

"Hey!" she barked, smacking his arm.

He jerked "awake" and blinked up at her.

"Get back to work."

He mumbled something in Spanish she didn't understand but it did not sound flattering.

"Who knew Rios could be such an ass," she muttered after he left. It must have been a very repressed part of him. Maybe that was why the ETH was going all out with it now.

Raffi shook her head at what her life had become.

She wandered the open deck and spotted Cris cleaning and organizing supplies with pristine, Starfleet efficiency. That piece was still in him too. Buried maybe, but still there.

…

After several weeks of working nonstop on the ship, Raffi had had enough.

"They should have names," she declared to Rios as he made the two of them lunch. Or, well, as he replicated it. He hadn't cooked since…everything.

"Who?" he asked.

"The EHs."

He shot her a surprised look and brought the two plates over. "Why?"

"Because I'm tired of calling them by their designations."

Cris pursed his mouth in thought. "Is that really necessary?"

Raffi frowned, unsure why he was being resistant to this. "Well, no, but you gave them personalities. Dysfunctional ones," she added under her breath, earning a wry glare from him. "It's only fair to give them names that aren't acronyms."

He seemed to consider it for a few more moments, still not looking enthused, but eventually nodded. "Fine."

"Hey," Raffi called out. "Can all the EHs assemble in the mess?"

One by one they filed in from wherever they'd been working. The ETH immediately slumped on the bench seat of the second table and slouched back against the edge, arms folded across his chest. Raffi tried to resist rolling her eyes. The EEH also took a seat, but instead of reclining he pulled out a tool to polish. Hospitality and the EMH opted to remain standing, while Navigation took the last seat, sitting up straight and giving them his full, intrigued attention.

Raffi faltered as she took in all of them gathered in one place at the same time. It was enough to make her dizzy. "Maybe this was a bad idea…"

Cris barely gave them a second look and continued to poke at his food with a fork.

"Okay," Raffi began. "Cris and I were just discussing giving you each a name. The acronyms can get…confusing."

The ENH perked up further, if that were even possible. "A name? Oh, that would be wonderful." He wiggled in his seat as though tickled by the idea.

"Right…" Raffi glanced at the others. "How's that sound?"

"I don't mind," the EMH replied. "I suppose some would think the act of naming to be a very prestigious event, while others would consider it not so formal, a nickname, if you will."

"Yeah," she cut him off. "We'll go with nickname." This did not need to turn into some big pressure thing.

"Ge bith dè yoo say, lassie," the EEH said.

Raffi almost groaned. "Again, not…" She took a deep breath and let that one go. "I'm gonna ask you to never call me 'lassie' again."

He held up his hands in concession. "Duly noted."

She glanced at the ETH next but he seemed to be barely paying any attention. Whatever.

"Okay." She turned back to the ENH first. "How about…Enoch! Resembles ENH but isn't so…plain."

The Navigational hologram lit up like a kid at his birthday party and clapped his hands in delight. That was easy.

Raffi turned to the EMH next and mulled it over for a minute. "Um…Emil?" Since she was going with a theme and Emil wasn't a far stretch from EMH.

He looked thoughtful and then nodded in appreciation.

Raffi threw a pointed look at Cris at this point.

He gave her a grudging one in turn but shifted around to look at the remaining EHs. "Uh, Emmet," he said, gesturing to the ETH.

Emmet just shrugged as though he couldn't give a flying monkey's ass about it.

Raffi rolled her eyes and moved on to Engineering. "Since we're going with E names, how about Ean? It's even Scottish."

Ean pursed his mouth ruminatively and then nodded. "Aye."

She turned to the EHH last, but before she could give it any thought, he held up a hand to forestall her.

"Mr. Hospitality will suffice," he said primly.

Raffi faltered. "Uhh…" She blinked and turned to Cris, who just rolled his eyes in irritation. "Okay then."

The EHH—"Mr. Hospitality"—nodded as well. "Then meeting adjourned," he declared. "Everyone back to work." He paused to glower at Emmet until the ETH hauled himself up and left with the others.

Raffi shook her head. She was living in a mad house.

…

It was finally time to launch _La Sirena_ into space. Which meant it was also time to deactivate the holo squad. They were all assembled on the bridge, their work complete. Raffi actually felt weird at having to turn them off after they'd been on for so long.

"Can we at least watch the launch?" Enoch asked hopefully.

Cris shifted awkwardly in the captain's chair. "Sure."

He pulled up the holo screen for the piloting controls. Everything was nice and shiny, the top of the line in design and customization, thanks to these very holograms. The engines in the back whirred to life. With a deft turn of his wrist, Cris activated them, and the ship took off toward the heavens.

Raffi watched the atmosphere thin out and finally break away to the vast expanse of space. It'd been several years and she'd almost forgotten.

There was some applause and high-fives from the holo squad, which made Raffi shake her head in amusement.

Then Cris turned, gave them one last sober look, and said, "Deactivate EHs."

They flickered away, ready to serve the next time they'd be needed. It was just him and Raffi again.

"So," she said. "Where to?"


	19. A New Course

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to Tessseagull for the Spanish!

"A New Course"

_2391_

They spent the first two weeks simply coasting through space, no destination in mind like they'd been doing on Earth. Raffi noticed Cris wasn't on edge as much and seemed more relaxed than he had since their untimely reunion. She, however, soon got bored with the same old walls and same old vintage from the replicator. She wanted fresh ale from a lively bar that maybe had some back corner dealers in other recreational substances.

However, it soon became apparent that while they lacked for nothing on Earth, the rest of the galaxy still ran on economics and neither of them had a single Federation credit or piece of latinum to their name.

_La Sirena_ was a freighter though, and so they started working as a ship for hire. They headed for one of the worlds Raffi had done a lot of work on when she'd been on the _Verity_ helping to relocate Romulan refugees. She had contacts there who could hook them up with some jobs transporting cargo, even knew which businessmen had some specialty goods they liked to run under the radar, and an unregistered ship was good for stuff like that.

Rios gave her a commission for setting up the gigs, which she spent on alcohol in whatever bar she could find on whatever planet they were currently docked at. Sometimes Cris joined her, but mostly he invested his earnings in keeping his ship in pristine working order.

Even though _La Sirena_ was a freighter, she had enough cabins they could also take jobs ferrying passengers.

That, however, proved to be an annoyance for both of them after spending so long in isolation. It was one thing to mingle with business contacts in a bar, but curious—or worse, chipper—guests grated on both of them. They finally activated one of the EHs to deal with it: Mr. Hospitality. That was his function after all. He could take care of the guests so neither Rios nor Raffi had to.

Still, they preferred the cargo jobs that left them to their privacy. Though, Raffi was finding that without the ability for Rios to go out on one of his long walks, even the two of them were starting to get on each other's nerves.

She woke one morning to the raucous sounds of quick, repeated thwacks coming from outside her door. She glanced at the time and groaned; it wasn't yet mid-morning or whatever passed for it on the ship's internal clock when one was out in the eternal night of space. Ugh, she was starting to sound like Rios. Speaking of whom…

Raffi dragged herself out of bed, lurching slightly from her hangover, and staggered out the door to give him a piece of her mind. She pulled up short and blinked in bewilderment. Rios was dressed in a tank top and loose fitting pants, and was currently going at Emmet with a pair of…wooden sticks?

"What the hell are you doing?"

The Tactical EH threw up his own pair of short staffs to block a strike from Rios, pausing the two of them in this little sparring dance. Rios broke away to turn to her, breathing heavily.

"I'm out of shape," he said by way of answer.

"It's too early for this," she groused.

He arched a brow at her.

"Shut up." Her eyes widened as Emmet abruptly lunged at Rios's exposed back.

Cris noticed her expression and twisted around just in time to deflect the blow. " _¿Juega limpio, quieres?_ " he snapped.

" _Los enemigos no juegan limpio_ ," Emmet replied. He hooked his foot behind Rios's ankle and knocked his leg out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor flat on his back. Raffi winced.

Rios lay there for a long moment, face contorted in a grimace. "Take a break," he breathed.

Emmet shrugged and dropped his sticks on the floor, then sauntered away to go lay down on the transporter pad, arms tucked up behind his head.

Raffi rolled her eyes and went to kneel next to Rios. "What was that?"

He groaned. "Me getting my ass kicked."

She snorted. "Yeah, by yourself."

Which, was probably some crazy Freudian thing that she wasn't going to touch with a ten-foot pole.

Rios finally pushed himself upright. "Like I said, I'm out of shape."

"Can't you do that in the holosuite?" she asked, still grouchy over being woken up.

He cast a sidelong look at her for a moment, then said, "Sure." He got to his feet. "Come on, I'll make it up to you with some coffee."

Well, since she was already up…

Later when she couldn't find Rios anywhere on the ship, she checked the holosuite. Sure enough, he'd moved his training sessions with Emmet there—but he'd had the holo imagers simply project an exact replica of _La Sirena_ 's deck. And, she noticed, he'd turned the safety protocols off.

Raffi sighed. They both had their issues.

But despite sometimes getting testy with each other, they were still the best company the other could tolerate amidst their own personal messes.

…

Rios slid into the seat perpendicular to where Raffi was sitting at the mess table and set a slice of chocolate cake in front of her. "Happy birthday."

"Is that today?" she said dully. She hadn't celebrated her birthday in, well, a few years. Kinda hard to when all days started running together in a blur.

She managed a smile for Rios though, since he'd bothered to remember. "Thanks," she said, picking up the fork and taking a bite of the rich, dark chocolate.

He offered a small smile in return and pulled a thin chain from his pocket to present to her. At the bottom dangled a charm in the shape of a dreamcatcher.

Raffi arched a brow at him. "Jewelry?"

He shot her a wry look. "Remember the Native American homestead we stopped at once in the desert? You liked the art. I figured if you don't want to wear it, you could hang it above your bed."

She softened her expression and took the necklace from him. "Thanks." It was simple, which suited her, and she did like the sentiment behind it. She undid the clasp and put the chain around her neck.

Rios picked up her fork and took the moment to steal his own bite of cake. Raffi swatted at him good-naturedly.

"Get your own."

One of the holograms abruptly flickered on then.

"It's your birthday!" He smiled at Raffi but then scowled at Rios. "Where are the candles on that cake? Hold on, let me look up how old you're turning."

"Deactivate Hospitality program," Raffi snapped.

He shimmered away.

…

The following week found them on a planet stocking up on some supplies that couldn't be replicated. The interesting thing about the market was that the shops that lined the main street were a diverse variety of anything from power coils to pastries. But what caught Raffi's eye, though, was the artistry shop with some figurines in the window—including a mermaid.

Rios was busy negotiating price for the power adaptors, so Raffi slipped into the small shop across the street.

"Greetings," the owner called, a lithe Bajoran woman.

"Hi," Raffi replied absently as she gingerly picked up the figurine to look at.

"You like that?" the Bajoran asked. "I find Earth's mythos of the siren fascinating. Such alluring beauty that proves to be deadly to men."

"Uh, yeah." Raffi's interest was much simpler than that. "How much?"

They settled on a price and Raffi made it back just as Rios was finishing up. She waited till they were back on _La Sirena_ before showing him what she'd gotten.

"I found this in a shop down there, if you can believe it."

He roved his gaze over the stone chiseled figurine, a smile tugging at his lips. "It's beautiful craftsmanship."

Raffi shrugged in agreement, but she was glad he liked it.

From there, any time she happened upon some random merchant that dealt in Earth trinkets or collectibles that included mermaids, she bought one for Cris. They had to be the real thing from a vendor, not something she just replicated herself on _La Sirena_ , like postcards collected from the places they traveled as mementos.

Because there was beauty in the galaxy, and sometimes they both needed reminding.


	20. Haunted

"Haunted"

_2391_

Rios hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in two years. Every single time he closed his eyes his mind took him back to that grotesque scene, to the image of his captain's blood and brain matter splattered all over a bulkhead. It was burned into his memory and no amount of scrubbing could get it out.

He'd tried alcohol for a while, and though he still drank to numb some of the pain in his waking hours, drinking to excess had only trapped him in even more vivid nightmares of watching his old man die by shooting his brains out.

Sometimes, in really bad ones, it was Rios pulling the trigger.

So he simply avoided sleep as much as he could and caught only a few hours here and there, short stints to keep him from slipping into that dreaded REM stage.

Two years. The first anniversary of Vandermeer's death had been hard, but it was supposed to get better after that, right?

Except, as the second was approaching, Rios found it hitting him that much harder.

Now it seemed as though he barely closed his eyes for a nap and the nightmares accosted him, his tortured mind forcing him to relive what he'd fought so hard to bury.

So he did the only thing he could—he stopped sleeping altogether.

He turned to coffee and stimulants to keep himself functioning. It wasn't difficult and he knew how to be responsible with the doses. It wasn't supposed to be long-term anyway, just until after the anniversary passed. Then he could go back to his regularly troubled sleep.

…

Two days later he nearly ran his ship into another while settling into orbit around a planet where they were dropping off cargo.

"Cris, watch it!" Raffi exclaimed as proximity alarms started blaring.

He startled badly, jerking the controls, which thankfully veered them away from the other ship and not into it because that had been pure knee-jerking and not a conscious realization of what had almost happened. He blinked blearily out the front window; that ship hadn't been there two seconds ago…had it?

The comm beeped with an incoming transmission and Raffi winced as she put it through. Some colorful cursing filled the air in a shrill tenor that was like claws on metal in Rios's head.

"We are so sorry!" Raffi tried to placate them. "It was an accident. Probably a malfunction in our proximity sensors."

The rest of the conversation faded out as Rios focused every ounce of concentration into settling his ship into a clear orbital path.

Raffi finally disconnected the comm link and slumped back in her seat at the ops station. She swiveled around to face him. "What the hell was that?"

"Navigation error," he managed to get out. "I'll get Enoch on it."

Raffi huffed. "Guess we won't be going anywhere until it's fixed. You want to go down to the planet and find a bar?"

"Not this time," he said distantly. Getting blackout drunk was definitely not an option right now. "I think I'm coming down with something."

Raffi narrowed her eyes at him. "You sure it was a navigation error?"

"Yes," he snapped irritably. " _And_ I have a headache."

"Alright, whatever."

They delivered their cargo and then Raffi went off to find a place to do some of her style of partying. On some level Rios knew he shouldn't have let her go off alone like that, but he was glad of the privacy. He activated the ENH and told him to run diagnostics on everything, and then he could man the conn for as long as they were in orbit. Enoch didn't question, just happily went to work as he was told, and Rios stumbled downstairs to the lower deck and replicated another stimulant to inject himself with.

He then activated Emmet for some sparring. But after two days of no sleep, his coordination was shot and his stamina in the toilet. It took all of thirty seconds for Emmet to lay him out flat on the floor.

Emmet came to loom over him, brow furrowed. " _¿Qué traes?_ "

Rios rolled onto his side, trying to push himself up while everything on deck spun around him. This had not been a good idea at all. Emmet wouldn't go easy on him and it would only take one hard punch to knock him out and then the dreams would come…

"Deactivate ETH," he muttered.

Emmet vanished, and Rios staggered to his feet and over to the replicator to make some more coffee. He heard Raffi beam back sometime later and slog drunkenly into her own quarters. At least she'd made it back safely. He activated the Hospitality hologram and asked him to take care of her needs in the morning. Then Rios went and locked himself in his room.

…

He stared at the corner where Alonso stood, leaning against the wall behind the bed with arms folded across his chest. He stared back at Rios.

It'd been three days—or was it four?—since he'd slept. Captain Vandermeer had shown up this morning—yesterday?—a silent figure watching Rios as wordlessly as he watched back.

Rios knew he wasn't real. His captain was dead. Had committed suicide. This was just a figment of his addled mind.

But it was better than the dreams where the back of his head was blown out— _and please, God, don't turn around_ …

"Say something," he muttered.

The hallucination didn't.

The EMH flickered into his room, blocking his view of Vandermeer. "Captain, I'm detecting a medical emergency…" Emil furrowed his brow. "Your biochemical levels are grossly off balance. What have you been doing?"

"Deactivate EMH," Rios growled.

Emil vanished, and it was just him and Alonso again.

…

His door beeped. "Cris?"

"Piss off," he mumbled, though it may not have come out very clear, or loud enough, because in the next moment, his door slid open and Raffi stepped inside with Emil.

Rios groaned. "Didn't I deactivate you?"

"Yes," the EMH huffed. "In the middle of a medical emergency that's only gotten worse!"

"Emil says you haven't slept in five days," Raffi said.

Rios squinted at her. Had it been five days? How much longer did he need to go? He lolled his gaze back to Vandermeer. _Pops_.

"Cris?" Raffi said carefully, glancing at the corner. "What's going on?"

"His brain is literally eating itself is what's going on," Emil said irritably and started to move closer.

"Don't touch me," Rios snapped with unadulterated vitriol.

Raffi put a hand on the EMH's shoulder to hold him back. She then held her hands up as she cautiously approached. "Cris, talk to me."

He mashed a palm against his eyes. Everything had a fuzzy edge now.

"If you've been having trouble sleeping, why didn't you just replicate something?" Raffi pressed.

"He's been replicating stimulants," Emil answered. "In ever increasing frequency for the past five days. I checked the logs."

"What?" Raffi shot Rios an incredulous look.

"Mind your own damn business," he barked.

"It's my business when my captain is slowly killing himself," Emil replied. "Do you have any idea what sleep deprivation does to the brain? Lobes get shut down. Astrocytes work in overdrive breaking down worn cells, which in this case is all of them!"

"Cris, honey—" Raffi started, ever more compassionate.

"I can't sleep right now!" he exclaimed. "Not now. Later when- when…" When what?

"When what?" Raffi echoed the question in his head.

He stared at Alonso in the corner. Raffi and Emil briefly followed his gaze again.

"You're hallucinating," Emil deduced. "Also a side effect of sleep deprivation."

"At least he looks alive!" Rios spat. "At least it's a change from seeing his blood everywhere, from living through it again and again!"

Raffi's expression softened. "Oh, baby…"

Rios flinched away from her. "I can't make it stop," he admitted brokenly.

Undaunted, she scooted forward and pulled him against her.

"You have to sleep," Emil pressed.

"What part of 'no' don't you understand?" Rios snapped.

"Cris," Raffi broke in. "You can't keep doing this. I know it seems better than the alternative, but it really isn't." She leveled a firm look at him. "Remember when I promised not to go too far? Well, you gotta abide by the same thing. And you're crossing that line."

He shook his head miserably. "I can't go there."

"I'll be right here the whole time," Raffi whispered.

He vaguely saw her beckon Emil forward. He wanted to yell at them to go away, to not force him, but he'd long since passed his limits and everything was a fog that felt thicker than sludge. There was a hiss of a hypospray, and then blackness.

…

If he dreamed he didn't remember it by the time he floated back to consciousness. He felt heavy and sluggish, but also strangely rested. Lolling his head to the side, he prized his eyes open and blinked blearily at his surroundings. He was in his quarters, in his bed. Emil was sitting in a chair to his left. Rios groaned and turned his head the other way, ending up with a face full of curls. He squinted at Raffi's form sprawled out beside him. She didn't stir at the movement.

"Good morning to you too," the EMH quipped.

"How long?" he rasped. His mouth felt incredibly dry but he wasn't quite ready to sit up and get something to drink.

"A little over seventy-two hours."

He snapped his gaze back. " _What_?"

"Between the exhaustion and sedatives I employed to ensure you stayed resting," Emil replied unapologetically. "Contrary to popular misunderstanding, one cannot 'catch up' on lost sleep, but you needed a lengthy bit of rest to give your body a chance to heal from the damage you inflicted on it."

Rios groaned and rubbed a hand down his face. Emil reached for a glass of water on the nightstand Rios hadn't even noticed and held it out to him. He tried to scooch himself into sitting upright. Despite feeling rested, his head ached and his muscles felt weak.

Raffi let out a soft moan and shifted, then opened her eyes. "Hey," she said, bolting upright immediately. "How are you feeling?"

Rios grimaced. "Sane," he mumbled, embarrassed by his lapse over the past several days.

"Well that's good." Her eyes regarded him sympathetically. "Did you dream?"

"Not that I remember." He couldn't help glancing toward the corner to see if Vandermeer was still there. He wasn't, and Rios felt a strange pang of loss at that, even if the visage had only been a ghost.

Raffi pulled her legs up to sit cross-legged on the bed. "So, two years, huh?" At a look from him she elaborated, "I looked it up. Figured it had to be something, like that time it was Gabriel's birthday."

Rios dropped his gaze to his lap.

"You could have talked to me about it," she prodded.

"I was trying _not_ to relive it."

"Yes, and your method worked so well for you," Emil interjected.

Both Rios and Raffi shot him a scowl.

"Weren't you programmed with a bedside manner?" Raffi sighed.

The EMH's brows shot up indignantly. "Of course I was. What do you call sitting bedside vigil for three days and anticipating my patient's needs?" He gestured to the glass of water Rios was still holding, then rose to his feet primly. "Speaking of which, I will replicate you something nutritious to eat. Since I noticed from the lack of logs that you failed to keep yourself properly fed recently as well." He walked over to the replicator across the room.

Rios glowered, ready to deactivate him, but a sharp look from Raffi stayed his tongue.

"He does care, you know," she said softly.

"He's just an EMH."

"You and I both know that's not true."

Rios couldn't look her in the eye.

Emil came back over with a plate full of eggs and toast, and Rios couldn't look at him either. He accepted the plate and picked at the food.

"I'm also programmed with a vast library of psychological profiles and therapy methods," Emil spoke up.

" _No_." Rios shot the EMH a warning look.

Emil sighed. "Very well."

"How about," Raffi put in, "you program a threshold alert to activate the EMH when the dreams reach a certain point, and Emil will just wake you up."

Rios's brow furrowed in thought.

"That's hardly conducive to a proper night's sleep," Emil argued.

"Neither are traumatic nightmares," Raffi countered.

Emil sighed again. "Point taken."

Rios was still mulling over the idea. He couldn't avoid sleep forever, as this had just proven. And he knew from experience that he couldn't avoid the nightmares. Raffi's suggestion wouldn't even keep him from having them, but if he could cut them off before they reached a certain point…

"Can you do that?" Rios asked the EMH.

Emil nodded. "We can set a monitor for heart rate, breathing, even movement."

"And you _will_ wake me?"

Emil looked almost hurt by the implication of otherwise. "Of course."

Rios exhaled slowly. He supposed it was worth a try.

"The anniversary was two days ago, by the way," Raffi spoke up gently.

Rios blinked. So he'd made it past it.

"Do you want to do anything to, I don't know, commemorate it?"

Commemorate his captain's death that to the rest of Starfleet was a dishonorable tragedy blackening a good man's otherwise distinguished career? Or the cold-blooded murder that had preceded it that Rios had covered up?

…Or that Alonso's suicide was Rios's fault.

"No," he said hoarsely.

No, he didn't want to commemorate that.

…

There was yelling. Angry, spiteful words brutally delivered in the heat of the moment when everything Rios thought he knew about the man he considered his father came crashing down. Why did he have to explode like that? Why couldn't he have just listened, just understood?

It was like he'd pulled the trigger himself. He watched the anguish bleed from Vandermeer's eyes, replaced with a deadened hollowness. The phaser in the captain's hand moved upward…

Something ice cold splashed in his face, and Rios jolted awake with a harsh gasp. He twisted in a tangle of sheets as chilled water ran down his beard to dribble onto his chest. Blinking the liquid from his lashes, his vision focused on Emil standing a few feet away, an empty glass in hand. Rios gaped at him in bewilderment.

Emil set the glass down on the nightstand and wordlessly tossed him a hand towel.

His breathing started to calm down and Rios sat up a fraction to wipe himself off. "That's the method you chose?" he said when he finally trusted his voice not to waver.

"I figured you would appreciate expediency while also maintaining respect for personal space."

Rios paused to consider his EMH. Yeah, Rios did appreciate those things. After a moment, he inclined his head in silent gratitude.

Emil gave a subtle nod of acknowledgement. "Good night, Captain."


	21. Lullaby

"Lullaby"

_2392_

" _Cris_."

Rios lolled his head to the side, moaning at the feel of cold metal against his aching temple.

"Cris. Wake up, dammit."

He couldn't help but groan again as he prized his eyelids open, only to squeeze them shut and roll onto his side as a wave of nausea threatened to empty his stomach. God, what had he had to drink?

"Crap," Raffi uttered. There was a soft thud and another curse. Something wasn't right.

Rios fought to open his eyes again, his stomach lurching violently and pain pulsing behind his eyelids from the too bright lights. He was lying on the floor in the cargo area underneath the bridge. Squinting painfully, he shifted his gaze until he found Raffi seated on the floor across from him, her arms raised to one side. It took him a moment to realize it was because her wrists were cuffed and magnetized against the bulkhead.

She noticed him looking and straightened. "Cris?" she called hopefully.

"Mm," he replied woozily, trying to get his brain to work on what the hell happened.

He and Raffi had just finished a delivery of some cargo and the recipient had left with his goods. The cargo hatch had been open for some fresh air…it was closed now. And with his ear pressed to the floor he could hear the subtle thrum of the impulse drive engines.

"Who's flyin' m' ship?" he slurred indignantly.

"Some asshole scavengers," Raffi replied. "Jumped us right after the cargo was gone. They clocked you hard." Her voice faltered. "I thought you were dead."

He forced himself to focus his gaze on her in whatever reassuring look he could muster. His skin down the whole left side of his face felt tight, even part of his beard. He gingerly reached up a hand to touch it and felt a half-dried tackiness.

Raffi swallowed hard, then continued, "Heard them say something about stripping the ship for parts."

"Like 'ell," Rios growled and tried to push himself into an upright position. His vision exploded with blinding white light and he pressed his face into the floor again. "Emmet," he called weakly.

"They're offline," Raffi said grimly. "These guys know what they're doing. The minute they barged on board one of them plugged in a device into the nearest terminal and disabled all the security protocols."

Well wasn't that frickin' fantastic.

"I don't think we're going off planet," Raffi went on. "I can still see sunlight coming through the windows upstairs."

Rios knew better at this point than to look. The inertial dampeners were of course functioning properly but he distinctly felt the room spinning. He needed to figure out how the hell he was going to get off the floor and take back his ship.

A frustrated grunt across the way rattled his skull. Raffi, right. Rios lifted his head and chest enough to start dragging himself across the floor toward where she was restrained. Bile rose in his throat and he had to pause to swallow it down. When he finally reached her, he blindly grabbed her shoulder to haul himself upright.

"You don't look so good."

He'd make a retort about her stating the obvious if there wasn't a good chance he'd throw up on her instead.

He fumbled at the magnetic cuffs, punching at the keypad haphazardly. He knew how they worked, of course he did, if only he could get his brain to think straight…

There was a beep and Raffi's arms abruptly dropped. Rios half collapsed with them.

"Hey, come on," she urged. "One more sequence."

She shoved her hands under his nose and his vision went cross-eyed as he tried to key in the last sequence to unlock the cuffs. There was another beep and whoosh of metal, and the cuffs clunked to the floor.

"Need weapons," he murmured.

"I'm gonna start taping phasers on the underside of tables and consoles," Raffi said as she pulled his arm over her shoulder and heaved him up.

The room tilted again and Rios squeezed his eyes shut, letting Raffi lead him toward an access panel into one of the Jefferies tubes that ran the length of the ship on its outskirts. It was a cramped fit, especially with the two of them crunched together.

Raffi tried to sit him down but he pressed a palm against the wall to halt his descent.

"Nuh-uh."

"Cris…"

He gave her a feeble shove. "Move."

She huffed but kept going down the tube to the access shaft connecting to the upper deck, then pushed him forward to climb the ladder first. "You fall on me and I will shave your beard while you're sleeping."

He didn't bother responding, mostly because it was taking all his concentration to put his feet on the rungs and not slip. But while his head was pounding, he was getting a bit more steady, and he made it up to the next level without kicking Raffi in the face.

She opened the access panel and peeked out at the transporter pad. The coast was clear. She slipped out first and Rios followed, both of them quietly creeping toward the armory rack next to the transporter. Voices from the opposite end of the ship filtered toward them. Raffi pressed a phaser into his hand.

"Look what I found," one of the pirates called, stepping out from the starboard corrider. He was holding one of the mermaid figurines from Rios's quarters.

The other two pirates up on the bridge barely looked over as their companion sauntered toward them.

"Captain's got a whole collection of these," the first sneered. He held his arm out and let the figurine drop from his fingers to shatter on the floor in half a dozen teal pieces.

Rios heard the clatter of china, and the broken mermaid was suddenly overlaid with the pieces of a little porcelain shepherd boy held in two tiny hands. A black and white patched ball leaned heavily against his foot. He knew he wasn't supposed to play football in the house. And now he'd broken one of his mother's cherished collectibles. She was very protective of it. Whenever they had family gatherings and her nosy cousins fussed with the figurines, his mother would snap a dish towel at them and shoo them out the door. Then she'd make sure they got served last when lunch was going around.

Cris had stood there in the middle of those broken pieces, unsure what to do, until his mother had come in and started yelling at him. Yelling at him for playing football in the house when she'd told him not to, for breaking the shepherd boy, and then for picking up the broken shards. He could have cut himself. While she was busy cleaning up the mess, he'd fled the house and hidden in the shed outside for hours until his mother finally found him. By that time she was no longer angry and had scooped him up in her arms to carry him back to his room. The memory of her voice singing him a lullaby started to carry him away…

Phaser fire jolted him back to the present as Raffi swept around the corner and started shooting. She took out the one who'd broken the mermaid first, then the second nearest pirate. The third ducked behind the captain's chair for cover and drew his weapon to return fire. Plasma bursts zinged back and forth through the air, hitting bulkheads and consoles instead of their targets.

Gritting his teeth, Rios lumbered around the rear of the deck to come up behind the last pirate from his other side. His vision was wobbling again as he took aim and he prayed he wouldn't miss as he fired. The pirate went sprawling on the floor.

Rios and Raffi met at the operations station and Raffi began frantically tapping away at the controls. The ship pulled up into a hover over a desert landscape. Raffi's shoulders sagged in relief.

"Get these assholes off my ship," Rios grunted, staggering back against the wall and sliding down it to sit on the floor.

"I need to get the EHs back online," she replied.

"Party's over," he pointed out with a mumble, closing his eyes.

"Emil!"

…

Rios sat in the captain's chair, gazing out through the windows at the vast starscape. They'd left that planet behind—and the pirates stranded out in its desert—and Emil had saved Rios from some inter-cranial bleeding. The EMH had also temporarily overridden the controls on the replicator so Rios couldn't replicate himself any alcohol to drink for the next twenty-four hours. He'd have to look into a meta override for that…

Speaking of overrides, though, he needed to implement some new security measures so that no one could hijack his goddamn ship again, no matter what tech they had at their disposal. Maybe Emmet would have some ideas tomorrow. Rios's head was still a little fuzzy and the only reason he hadn't gone to bed was he was still feeling a tad possessive and wanted to stay at the ship's controls for a bit longer.

He lolled his head back against the seat and simply stared at the stars. His mother's voice came unbidden, softly trying to lull him to sleep. Feeling nostalgic, he started to hum along, his eyelids growing heavy.

But just when he was about to nod off, he jerked awake and moved to the ops station where he started rapidly swiping at the controls. He had just the thing. His mother's lullaby could put the ship to sleep should he ever need to shut it down and reboot to thwart any future attempts at hijacking. Yes, that would work just fine.

Rios leaned back in his seat and began to sing, recording the phrases for voice and pattern recognition. Once that was done, he finally felt like he could relax and truly get some rest. His mother's voice was still with him, bringing a soft smile to his face as he settled back in his chair and drifted off to her lilting tune.

_Arroz con leche_

_Me quiero casar_

_Con una viudita_

_de la capital…_


End file.
